


Wraiths of Wandering

by ponderinfrustration



Series: Aftermath [3]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Angst, Children, F/M, Gen, Grief, M/M, Motherhood, Mourning, Post-Canon, War, World War I, Wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2018-11-15 09:39:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 112,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11228304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderinfrustration/pseuds/ponderinfrustration
Summary: France 1917. Konstin Daaé, the son of Christine and Erik, is badly wounded fighting on the Western Front. His best friend and lover, Antoine De Chagny, is wounded saving him. Antoine's sister, Marguerite, is nursing in the hospital to which they are brought, but she has her own struggles. And back in Paris, Christine waits desperately for news.





	1. In Front and Behind the Lines

The fog is both a curse and a comfort. A comfort, because it dulls the gunfire, deadens it and saves Konstin’s ears though the aching buzz never quite goes away. A curse, too, for that very reason. It is so very easy to get lost in the fog, to trip over barbed wire or to fall into a shell crater. Without the fog, it is harder to tell when the shells are coming towards him, when the guns are aimed in his direction. When the guns are right beside him.

His chest is tight with the pounding of his heart, each breath shallow as if shallow breaths are more careful than deep ones.

They might be, if there was gas. If there was gas they would not even know with the fog, and his stomach churns at the thought.

The fog slows the advance, but at least it conceals them from enemy sights. If they cannot see the opposite trenches, then those in the opposite trenches cannot see them, cannot know that they are picking their way across. The thought is not the comfort that it should be.

After all, those in the trenches behind cannot see them now, either.

A faint gasp, off to his left, and dimly he sees the shadow of a figure collapse. Dupuis looks at him, a frown furrowing his brow, and Konstin nods for him to tend to the man. In a moment Dupuis has slipped away, but Konstin cannot watch, needs to keep leading what men are left across.

A gurgle, to his right. Out of the side of his eye he sees a fountain of blood from Mazet’s neck, starkly crimson against the fog. Mazet falls, and Konstin’s fingers ache to plug the wound, but it’s a neck wound. He’ll be dead in the next handful of minutes if he isn’t already.

Konstin draws a stuttering breath, tries to still the pounding of his heart. Two men down, _that he’s seen_. How many more has he missed with this fog? Damn, but he knew, he _knew_ it was a bad idea to try to cross today. He _knew_ it, and he told the Colonel too that in his opinion it would be a fatal error. But the Colonel insisted that the orders came from a higher authority, and short of mutiny there was nothing either of them could do.

Mutiny would be a better alternative to this.

Faintly he hears the crash of a shell, and there is one moment of searing pain before the world falls to blackness.

* * *

 

“You’d think they’d stop the shelling when they can’t even see us,” Thibault grumbles, and Antoine sighs, wraps his fingers tighter around his mug of coffee. It hardly deserves the name of coffee really, but at least it drives some of the ice from his fingers. That is the one good thing he can say for it.

“True, Capitaine,” he says softly, “but you know as well as I do that there’s a team of our side sending just as many shells their way. If the fog hasn’t stopped us, why should it stop them?”

Thibault mutters something incomprehensible, and Antoine is hard-pressed to suppress a smile. The Capitaine is never satisfied unless he has something to complain over. Even if everything were going swimmingly and they had the advantage he would find something to make him bitter. Antoine is just grateful that he never airs his issues in front of the men. Morale is bad enough without the Capitaine adding to it.

_Just one more day until the change,_ Antoine reminds himself. _One more day, and you’ll be back behind the lines with slightly better coffee. And Konstin will be rotating out too. Just think of that._

The screech of a shell overhead puts the thought from his mind. Antoine and Thibault duck at the same time, the walls of the dugout shaking in the crashing noise. In a moment it passes and the next shells are duller, but Antoine’s ears ache, and there are flecks of black grit floating on the top of his coffee.

* * *

 

In the rare moments that the city is quiet they can hear the gunfire over the Aisne. The continuous low rumble of it like far-distant thunder, an impossible monotony so that Christine cannot pick out individual shots. Perhaps it is better this way, when she does not have to wonder with each shot if that one is the one. Like this, the gunfire rolling constantly beneath the streetcars and shuffle of people going about their business, it is as if there has always been a war, as if the noise has always been there. And she can pretend, almost, that this is normal.

She aches now, more than ever, for music. Real music, not the music of the gramophone which is always slightly dulled by recording. Actual music with actual instruments. Her world was full of music once, so much that it would have consumed her if she would only have let it. But those days are long gone, and the Garnier has lost much of its glory. None of the sweeping operas anymore, only simpler affairs, the music itself pinched with worry. Not even the Garnier can be an escape.

Anja, Christine thinks, realised that before she ever did, and that, maybe, is why she abandoned the ballet so quickly for nursing duties.

Deep down, she knows she would prefer her daughter to be still in the ballet.

But Christine would prefer a great many things now, and that is only one of them. And how can there be music when Konstin is away at the Front?

* * *

 

Marguerite stretches her fingers and surveys the ward. The men in this section are settled, the morphine helping to keep the pain at bay. And just in time too, for her to come on shift. The men on other wards may not be so fortunate, but for once everything here is just—

No. She dare not think that word. If she does it will surely cause some reaction and truckloads of casualties will arrive in in need of tending to. Washing, bandaging, surgery. She will not so much as _permit_ a single possibly cursing thought to cross her mind.

“De Chagny.” The Matron’s voice is a warning, and Marguerite shivers, turning around to the door. The older woman does not utter a word, not in front of the wounded men, but the slight way she nods says all she needs to, and Marguerite’s heart sinks. Even intentionally _not_ thinking that the place is quiet is, apparently, enough to change that.

 

 


	2. Left for Dead

His ears throb. They ache deep, drilling right into his skull so that all he can hear is a high-pitched constant squeal. The pain burns deep in his brain, as if there are needles piercing his eardrums. He gasps a breath, and in the next moment regrets it as his lungs sear hot.

For a long time he knows no more.

* * *

 

Muffled shouts, screams, far away. Rattling. Screeching. A banging crash and another one, buzzing in his ears. His throat aches, blood stinging metallic on his lips.

* * *

 

It comes to him in bits, impressions. A shell, its screech muffled by the fog so that it sounded as if it were screeching over someone else, far away. A spurt of blood in the air. His skin crawling on the back of his neck. A brief flash of pain, pain in his face, his eyes, his chest, his legs. And then there was only stillness.

Only stillness.

Konstin’s eyes flicker open to pressing fog, and sharp pain lances deep into his skull. He snaps his eyelids closed, gasping, his lungs aching with the effort to breathe through the thick fog. Gas. Was there gas? They say gas burns the eyes, blisters the skin, the inside of the throat. If there’s gas—

He draws in a deeper breath, chest heaving to gag on it, and smells no mustard, no musty hay. It does not mean there is no gas but if he cannot smell it—

If he cannot smell it—

Slower, this time, he opens his eyes again.

The pain stabs his left eye, only his left eye, and he hisses as he closes it, his breath catching in his throat. Tears trickle down his cheeks, the pain stinging, and he grits his teeth, sucking in shallow breaths until it eases.

His thoughts come slow, sticky.

_One eye…ears ringing…chest…limbs?_

Carefully, he wriggles the fingers on his right hand, and finds them a little stiff, but compliant. His left fingers throb dully with pain, wrist prickling, and the moment he tries to raise his arm he feels the skin of his forearm tear.

It’s all he can do to stifle a gasp.

_Probably shouldn't try that again._

He swallows the groan in his throat, and sluggishly turns his attention to his legs. Pain stabs in his right knee and hip, uncomfortable more than anything. The left—

The left he tries to lift, and gags. Pain bursts in his hip, in his knee, in his ankle, his shin burning and thigh aching. Beads of sweat break out on his skin, his breath coming in shorter gasps, misting before him in the fog, tears stinging his eyes. Pain, pain, pain, and he can't move his leg at all.

In spite of himself he snorts a laugh. It’s ridiculous, really, that he should be lying out here, his chest aching with every breath, half-blind with a throbbing headache in the back of his skull, one arm that feels like it’s splitting open if he moves it, and one leg that bursts with pain if he so much as twitches it.

How ridiculous.

How _fucking_ ridiculous.

The tears sting as they trickle down his cheeks but he cannot muster the energy to move his arm and wipe them away. He can only lie there, with the fog pressing in on him, and weep.

* * *

 

It is a long time later when he comes back to his senses. He might have passed out again, he doesn't know. The pain in his skull would certainly suggest it. But he finds himself still lying there, the fog still pressing in on him as if he is in a cocoon away from the rest of the world, as if there is only him left.

_Where are the others?_

The question comes unbidden, and his stomach churns at it, bile rising and burning his throat. If he is lying here, burning and throbbing with pain and barely able to move a muscle, then _where are the others?_ They should be here too, somewhere around him. They would not have left him here alone. Maybe, if they thought him dead, but Dupuis at least would check even if none of the others did. Dupuis would feel a pulse, would surely, surely hear the rattle of his breath (he can hear the muffled rattle of his own breath and it sounds _awful_ ) and order him brought back to be stretchered out.

But they left him here.

They _left_ him here.

Before the hollowness of abandonment has time to open in his gut, a terrible thought comes to Konstin through the sludge of his brain. Perhaps he _is_ dead. Perhaps he has not moved on yet, is condemned to lie here for an eternity. Perhaps this is to be his Fate, forever lying in No Man’s Land with the fog pressing in and pain burning in every inch of his body. Perhaps this is all there is.

No! _No._ It can't be it can't. He’s not dead he’s not he’s not. That’s not how it works. You don't just die and stay there forever! There’s supposed to be more to it than that. If there wasn't the world would be full of ghosts. If there wasn't he wouldn’t be lying here alone, there would be more ghosts, more dead scattered around, _it wouldn't be like this._

Konstin sucks in a breath and his ribs stab with the effort but it clears his thoughts enough that he’s able to gather himself a bit. If he were dead, _if,_ then he would not be breathing, but he is very _definitely_ breathing and each bit of throbbing pain in his chest assures him of that. If he were dead he would not have a pulse.

His left arm is too badly damaged, but he scrabbles at his throat with his right hand, clumsily pulls the buttons of his collar open, and presses his fingers to where he knows the artery is.

And finds a pulse.

Even though he knew it would be there, he can't help the nauseating wave of relief that washes over him.

He _is_ alive. He _is._

_So what are you going to do about it?_

The voice is Antoine’s, whispering to him from the depths of his memory. Dimly he sees himself again as he was, twenty years ago, telling Antoine about his plan to go on an adventure, and Antoine’s brown eyes frowning at him.

_So what are you going to do about it?_

“I’m go…ing to…have to…move” The words are faint, out before he ever realises it. But they are true. He _has_ to move, somehow. He can't just stay lying here all night, and night has fallen, he feels it, though how long ago he cannot tell. When he was unconscious? Or when he was out of his senses?

But he can't stand up and walk away either, not with the state his leg must be in. He doesn't know how far away he is from the lines, or even what direction they are. He could hobble right into German hands. If they didn't outright shoot him he’d be scarcely better off than he is now.

The pain in his head makes it so hard to think, his vision blurring around the edges. Surely, _surely_ there’s something he can do.

He draws in another breath, and curls his fingers tight to brace himself before turning his head infinitely carefully to his left.

And there, barely ten yards away, is a shell crater.

He can see it just below the fog, would miss it if he were sitting up. Is that from the shell that left him like this? Or is it from another, older one? Does it matter?

If he can only turn over, somehow, and get to it.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he manages to roll over. The pain slices through his chest and leg, and for a moment he loses the world to blackness.

When the crater and the fog swim back into view, he swallows a breath, finds himself lying on his front and it takes him a moment to realise why. It’s harder to breathe like this, his lungs burning with the pressure of the muddy earth beneath him, but he has to try and if he can even pull himself over—

Pulling himself is all he can do, and using his good right leg to push himself he gets to move a little way. It’s not much, and it’s not _nearly_ enough, but it’s progress, and even with the sweat breaking out on his forehead and the tears running down his cheeks with the effort he takes heart from that and pulls himself another tiny bit, and another, and other. And his ribs ache and his lungs stretch, gasping for breath and his leg burns like it’s on fire but he can't stop now, he _can’t stop_ or he’ll die and pulling himself might kill him but it’s better than lying out there exposed when the fog clears, better than dying out here without making any effort to save himself and he just pulls, just pulls…

For the briefest pause between heartbeats he thinks he sees someone standing in black before him, then he topples into the shell crater and the figure is gone and there is only pain burning in every muscle, in every bone, in his blood.

Golden eyes dance before him, and his last thought is, _if Antoine were here_ , before the darkness takes him again, at last, and there is no pain, no burning, only silence.


	3. In the Night there is Them

“There was one who got a bellyful of shrapnel,” Émile’s voice is enthusiastic, far too enthusiastic to be talking about such horrific things but Émile has always been fascinated by wounds. The time Guillaume broke his leg in a riding accident Émile spent hours probing his cousin with questions, though he could not have been more than eight at the time and Guillaume was half-dozing thanks to the morphine. “…how he survived.”

A cracking yawn and a sigh draw Christine’s attention away from her knitting to her son. His eyes are drooping, arm slack where he’s thrown it over the arm of the divan, and now it is her turn to sigh. “Go up to bed, sweetheart,” she says softly, her lips twitching as she struggles to contain a smile. Any moment now he’ll shake his head and deny that he’s tired, the same way he’s been doing since he was three years old, despite every ounce of evidence to the contrary. He’s after working a sixteen-hour shift, of course the boy is tired.

Émile shakes his head, and there it is, the inevitable moment of defiance. The chuckle catches in Christine’s throat as he whispers, “I’m fine. I just—just need to close my eyes a min…”

As the word trails off, Raoul looks at Christine over the top of his newspaper, and smiles knowingly. “Don’t worry, darling. I’ll bring him up.” He sets his newspaper down on the table, and takes off his glasses, laying them carefully on top of it. His back creaks as he pushes himself to his feet, and leans over, brushes his lips gently against Christine’s forehead. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

She smiles up at him, and he winks at her, then walks to the divan, and takes Émile by the hand. “Come on, son.”

Émile grumbles as he’s pulled to his feet, sways. At fifteen he is almost as tall as his father, and Raoul wraps an arm around his waist to support him as he guides him out of the room. It is not the first night like this of late, and Christine listens to their steps as they climb the stairs, Raoul’s steady and Émile’s stumbling, then goes back to her knitting, the clicking of the needles muffled by the wool. The scarf is red, a nice wine-red, with a checked golden pattern, or, it will be. It is a gift for Konstin, something to bring a bit of brightness to him when he is back behind the lines, though she doubts if he will wear it at all until he is home on leave again, whenever that may be.

Well, if he wears it or not it does not matter. The wool has been there for years. It needed to be used.

Konstin will probably pass the scarf onto Antoine after he wears it once or twice, and Antoine will look very dashing in it. It will bring out the red tinge to his hair, and Konstin will sit and sketch him, his hand moving fast over the page and that thoughtful look on his face, and Antoine will laugh over how ridiculous he thinks he will look in the portrait, though he will not look ridiculous at all.

Pain stabs briefly in Christine’s heart. There was a time, more than thirty-five years ago, when Erik sat and sketched her, and her eyes sting for a moment at the memory, but the tears don't come, not this time. They come so rarely now, though she still thinks of him every day. How can she not, when Konstin can remind her so much of him without even realising it?

No. No. She will not think of the similarities between them now. If she does she will never get this scarf finished.

She swallows against the fluttering of her heart, and sighs, and turns her attention back to the wool still in her hands. Erik only wore darker reds than this (except for that one time at the masquerade and it made him seem so much taller and so much thinner), but they did suit him so well. And red suits Konstin too, though he never admits that, favours his dark blues and his blacks. The gold in the scarf will draw out his eyes, give them that ethereal glow. She might mention that in the letter she’ll send with the scarf. Maybe it will encourage him to wear it, if he thinks it make him look ethereal.

A letter. There were no letters today. She would have liked a letter, even just one, regardless of which of them sent it. A letter from Konstin would, of course, be particularly loved. A letter from Marguerite is always one to be treasured, though Christine knows she’s holding back from all she could say, and Sorelli has confirmed as much with that worried pinch to her face. A letter from either Antoine or Guillaume or both, come from different directions. They usually write to Raoul moreso than to her, deferring to their uncle with matters of the Army and Navy, but they always include a note for Christine. Sorelli has often laughed at the way her boys, and Marguerite too, insist on keeping in such close touch with their aunt and uncle, nevermind that any letter from either of them to Raoul and Christine contains much the same content as the letter that will arrive the same day for Sorelli and Philippe, though Antoine will always include some specific lines for Christine about Konstin. He knows she likes to have his perspective on things. He always tells her the little things that Konstin will neglect to mention, about shells and casualties. Konstin would not want to worry her more by mentioning them, but Antoine knows that she prefers to know exactly how much danger they are in.

The door creaking open disturbs her from her thoughts, and she looks up in time to see Raoul resume his seat. “He dropped right off,” he says softly, and it takes Christine a moment to remember that he went up with Émile. Considering how exhausted he was, it is no surprise that he dropped right off.

“I thought he might.” She lifts the scarf to inspect its length. It’s further on than she thought. Another foot and a half or so and it should be finished. Raoul slips his glasses back on, and nods at her.

“It looks well.”

“I hope he likes it.” Even if he does not like it, Konstin is far too polite to tell her that, and she bites her lip, tilts her head to regard it again. He will still wear it for her, but he should not feel compelled to wear it just to please her. What is the point in that? Oh, she should have used black instead of red! The red wool would have done for something for Anja.

Raoul sighs, and frowns at her. “You know he will. Now, don’t fret over it.” He reaches over, and wraps his fingers gently around her wrist, lowers her arm down and the scarf with it. A faint smile flickers around the edges of his lips, and in spite of the twisting anxiety in her chest she smiles at him. Dear Raoul. Dear, sweet Raoul. He always knows what to say to make her feel better.

That is why she has always loved him, really, even some little part of her when Erik was still alive.

But no. Erik has no part here tonight, not when Raoul is looking at her so softly. Tonight, there is only Raoul, and it would be so easy to just sit here for hours with him looking at her like that, the silver threads in his hair shining to match the rims of his glasses. If she had any sketching ability herself, she would sketch him just like that, sweet and soft and half-smiling, his eyes crinkled. Her husband. The title fits him perfectly.

(He once whispered to her, with a rush of love, that it is the only title he cares about, being her husband. And her heart fluttered, and she kissed his cheek, and said she felt the same way).

 “What are you thinking about?” he asks, his voice low as it pulls her back from her thoughts.

She smiles at him, and does not ask how he knew her distraction. “You.”

His eyes twinkle back at her, still so blue and lovely after all of this time. “Would you,” his fingers tap her wrist lightly, “like to take those thoughts upstairs?” His voice is light, almost teasing with one eyebrow cocked, and she feels that old familiar bubbling beneath her navel, her cheeks suddenly too warm.

“I rather think I would.”

* * *

 

They lie awake in the darkness afterwards, Raoul’s arm warm around Christine’s waist, and she nuzzles into his chest. They do not say much of anything. What is there to say that they haven't said before, a hundred, a thousand times? But the world is still, the city hushed for the night, and Émile is asleep down the hall, and a little while ago they heard the front door click closed with Anja arriving home from her shift. The house lies still except for their breathing, and this is enough, for her and Raoul just to hold each other close in the darkness, their children safely home. What more could they ever need?

_Almost_ enough. All that would complete it is Konstin, knowing that Konstin is home and safe. _But he is not home, and far from safe_ , a dark voice whispers in the back of her mind, intruding on the peace. Konstin. Fear flickers for him, deep in her chest, and as if he senses it, Raoul pulls her closer to him, and kisses her hair. “He’ll be all right,” he murmurs, his voice soft and low, “he’ll be all right.” She wishes she could believe him, wishes that the conviction in his voice were enough to protect Konstin, but he has said it so many times in the last three years, so many times and if Raoul’s conviction were enough then surely the war would be over and Konstin would be here, sleeping down the hall, or else safe on the Rue de Rivoli in the house that is his. If he were only in Paris, and then she would know, then she could be certain.

“I just wish he were home,” she whispers, her voice muffled by Raoul’s chest. He sighs, his lips soft against her forehead.

“I know, darling. I know.” And he does know. Of course he knows. But just to hear him say it makes her feel a little easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next week: Back to Antoine and Konstin at the Front


	4. Discovery

It is a ghost. It must be a ghost. There are things on these battlefields, spirits of centuries, spectres of the wounded, the dead. A figure draped in black walking across foggy No Man’s Land with an air of _belonging_ there? It cannot be anything living.

The very sight of it makes Antoine’s blood chill.

The ghost has no wings, not that he ever expected a ghost to have wings. They say that ghosts float above the ground, but this ghost does not do that either. This ghost simply _is,_ unarmed and black enough to be a shadow. And when the ghost tilts it’s head, and turns towards Antoine, it looks out at him from a face like a skull.

Konstin’s eyes shine back at him, and take his breath away.

He sees them, only for a flash of a moment, before he catches sight of Konstin himself, lying silent and bloody in the shell crater beneath him, the shall crater he would have fallen right into if he had not seem the ghost. The same eyes, that same glowing gold-hazel that no one else in the world could ever have. Antoine’s heart lurches, and he looks from Konstin to the ghost and back, and the world tilts.

His brain buzzes, snags on a single thought. _Konstin_. Konstin is what matters now. Not some ghost with his eyes.

There is no water in this shell crater, which means it’s fresh, and Konstin is slumped over, leaning against the side of it, his uniform torn and half his face streaked in blood. _He looks dead,_ a voice whispers in Antoine’s ear, and his head spins, his stomach falling. A heartbeat later he has scrambled into the crater too, has dropped to his knees beside Konstin, his brain echoing the single mantra of _Not dead not dead not dead can’t be dead._ He pulls off one of his gloves, loosens Konstin’s collar, and presses trembling fingers to his throat.

For a moment, for one, awful, heart-stopping moment, Antoine can feel nothing. No pulse, no breathing, nothing but the cool, clamminess of Konstin’s skin. The world spins around him, his heart clenching painfully. _No no no_. Then there is a faint flickering against his fingertips, and he presses his fingers deeper, hardly daring to breathe just to be sure, _to be sure._

And there it is, a slight pulse fluttering faintly against his fingers.

Konstin groans, his face contorting, and the relief that overcomes Antoine is dizzying. He sinks down beside him, tears prickling his eyes, and with one rough movement he brushes them away, sucks in a breath to steady the pounding of his heart. Konstin is alive, _he’s alive, thank God he’s alive._ His hand lies limp beside him, and Antoine gently takes it, squeezes it. He gets no response, only a whimper that his ears barely catch.

The earth shakes with the thud of a shell, and without a single thought Antoine throws himself over Konstin. He has to protect him, he has to, he can’t let him get killed now just after finding him! But he can’t hear the shells, not through the fog, their screeching so dull they sound miles away. His vision blurs with the tears that prickle his eyes, jaw aching his teeth are clenched so tight.

The earth shakes again. Another shell. The strafe! But…it isn’t due for a few more hours. And they’re always so regular with their strafes. Did they start early? How long was he wandering in the fog before he fell into this crater?

Konstin groans, coughs. The very sound of that hoarse cough makes sweat break out on Antoine’s forehead and the shaking of the earth seems to still. Coughing means lungs. Coughing means _gas._ Gas! Is there gas? Antoine heaves a breath without intending to, and the air whistles cold and clean in his throat. Gas settles heavy at the bottom of shell craters. That’s what they always say. And if there was even a small bit of gas—If there was even a small bit of gas when Konstin fell in here then he needs to be in hospital _now._

Gas leaves blisters.

Antoine pulls back, and peers into Konstin’s face. There is so much blood down the left side, spilled from a gash just over his eye, that for a moment Antoine cannot tell if there are blisters or not. His fingers tremble as they brush the skin, find another gash at the edge of Konstin’s lip, and one below his eye. But there are no raised bubbles, on the left side or the right, and without a moment’s hesitation he presses his lips to Konstin’s clammy forehead.

“Thank God,” he whispers. “Thank God.”

Another tremor in the ground reminds him that the strafe is ongoing, and he closes his eyes as he flattens himself back over Konstin. Please God there’ll be plenty of time to thank God later, for both of them, if he can only keep Konstin safe now.

So many words cluster on his tongue, but he can’t speak a single one of them. So many simple things, so many promises, so many of them things he’s whispered to Konstin a hundred, a thousand times! And he burns to speak them now, to whisper them into his skin as he lies here shielding him, but to even breathe them out here in the middle of—in the middle of _this_ would taint them, poison them, and he would never be able to speak them again, so he clamps down tight on the urge and gropes for Konstin’s hand again, and squeezes it. That will have to do, will have to do.

* * *

 

How long he lies there over Konstin, shielding him from the shellfire, Antoine cannot tell. But gradually the shaking of the ground because less and less, until it dies away, and he lies there a little longer just to be certain that it really is gone. Konstin never stirred, never made a sound beyond the occasional groan or whimper, and Antoine wishes he could believe that that is a good thing, but he _can’t._ He just _can’t._ Konstin, a man who refuses to complain about anything, to whimper in pain even unconscious? How could that ever be good?

Antoine’s heart aches, and his stomach churns with threatening panic. But he can’t let himself panic now. If he does then they are both dead, and whatever about himself but _Konstin._ No. He needs to stay calm, needs to stay composed. Needs to think. He draws in a breath, and nods to himself, feeling a little stronger.

First thing first. Figure out what wounds Konstin has. There might something he can do about them.

Would that he _could_ figure out what wounds Konstin has. But Konstin’s uniform is heavy and stiff with mud, and the light through the fog is too weak to see what blood there is, apart from what’s on his face. Antoine’s fingers hover over that face again, and his heart aches to wipe the blood away but if he does that then the gashes might only start bleeding again.

Instead he lets his hand drop to Konstin’s shoulder, and shakes him. “Konstin,” he whispers, “Konstin.”

The only answer he gets is a faint whimper, and the flickering of eyelids.

How long has Konstin even been lying out here?

Too long. It was early morning when word reached Antoine down the line that Commandant Daaé had not returned with what was left of his men. That there was a shell but through the fog they could not see where it landed, and it took them a while to realise that Commandant Daaé, always so calm, so steady leading them, had disappeared.

And Antoine stared at the aide telling him, his mind insisting it was not real, it _could not_ be real. Konstin couldn't be missing, he couldn't have disappeared out there, he couldn't have been blown up by a shell. He was Erik Konstantin Daaé, didn't they know that? Konstin wouldn't let something like that happen to him.

“He’ll be hiding out there,” he whispered, the words catching in his throat. “You’ll see. He’s only hiding until it’s safe to come back.” They were still in the middle of the early strafe, and even as he spoke Antoine and the aide had to steady themselves against the shaking of the dugout as another shell burst.

And here Konstin is, as if Antoine had prophesied it, lying in a shell crater, wounded but alive, and in spite of the worry twisting in his gut, in spite of the struggle that it’s going to be to get Konstin back, part of Antoine burns to look that aide in the eye, and tell him, _I knew he was alive. I knew it._

“An…” it is the barest breath, hardly even a word, but it draws Antoine’s attention away from the memory of the dugout and back to Konstin, and he curls his fingers around Konstin’s own and smooths back his hair.

“I’m here, Konstin,” he whispers, and presses his lips gently to Konstin’s forehead again, to the clean patch unblemished by blood or dirt. It registers faintly in the back of his mind, for the first time, that Konstin has lost his helmet somewhere, his dark hair stiff and muddy too. “I’m here, and I’m going to get you back to the line, I promise, and you’re going to be fine.”

Konstin whimpers, tears trickling from his closed eyes. “An…toine.”

“Ssshhh. Sshh. I’m here, don't say a word. I’m here. You’re safe now.” And how Antoine aches to believe those words himself, but if he can even make Konstin believe them then things might not be so bad.

A flicker of gold-hazel iris from beneath heavy lids. “Hu-urts.”

“I know it does, I know. But I’ll get you back, I promise, and they’ll fix you up.”

He’s going to have to get him out somehow. But how? He can’t just drag him out and across No Man’s Land. There’s too much barbed wire and too much shrapnel hidden in the mud and it would only make his wounds worse. But Konstin is far too weak to walk, even supported by Antoine. He’s going to have to try to carry him.

But as soon as he tries to lift him, Konstin cries out, tears trickling down his cheeks, and Antoine realises for the first time how pale his lips are, tinged blue. His heart clenches tight at the sight.

“I’m sorry, Konstin,” he whispers, his voice cracking, “but I need to move you,” and bracing himself for another cry of pain, Antoine tries again. Konstin is silent this time, his body limp, the pain having pulled him back to unconsciousness, and somehow, _somehow_ , Antoine manages to hoist him onto his back. His muscles ache and tremble, lungs burn with the effort, and praying each step of the way Antoine carries him out of the shell crater.

And finds a figure in black with a face like a skull standing at the edge of the crater, waiting.

It takes Antoine a moment to realise that this is the spectre from before, the spectre that led him to Konstin what feels like a hundred years ago though it can only be a handful of hours at most.

Surely, surely it cannot be a good sign to find a figure in black looking like a corpse walking waiting for him to climb out of a crater with Konstin wounded on his back. And it’s on the tip of Antoine’s tongue to hiss something like, “If you’re Death, you'll have to take me too to get him,” but the figure only scowls at him with those golden eyes startlingly like Konstin’s, and beckoning imperiously turns away, before Antoine has the chance to utter a single thing, and starts walking.

And part of Antoine screams at him that he should not follow something that looks like Death. And part of him reminds him that with the pressing fog and how long he’s been in the shell crater he can’t tell what direction the French lines are in anymore. He could easily walk right into a German trench and hand himself over to them, or get killed! This ghost, demon, spectre, whatever the hell it is, might be trying to lead him astray, to lose him out here.

But the ghost led him to Konstin. The ghost has Konstin’s eyes, and in the end, there is really no question of what he will do. The memory of those eyes pushes Antoine to stumble after the ghost, Konstin’s breaths warm and faint against his neck.

Konstin’s breaths force Antoine on, keep him walking even as his shoulders stiffen and his arms scooped under Konstin’s legs tingle with numbness and his own legs ache. He keeps walking, his mind empty of thoughts, too hollow and too numb and too tired, one foot in front of the other, and that black figure only ever a little in front of him. Walking for what seems like an eternity through the fog pressing in on each side, the screams of other soldiers faint and distant, the low rumble of gunfire faded as if in a dream. If there are shells he does not hear them, and if he had the energy he might thank God for that. But he has only the energy for walking. Walking and walking and walking. And it niggles in the back of his mind. A ghost in black. A ghost with a face like a skull. A ghost with Konstin’s eyes. And the answer is there, just out of his reach, but he needs to keep walking and he can’t stop to think, can’t stop when he needs to get back to the lines.

It is only when he hears “Commandant de Chagny!” that Antoine realises the black figure has gone, that he is standing before Capitaine Thibault, the trench opening up just beneath them, and then there are several more men crowding around them, a jumble of faces he knows and is too tired to name, lifting Konstin off his back.

“Careful!” His voice is hoarse, throat aching. “Commandant Daaé is badly wounded.”

His aide is beside him, the same aide that told him so long ago that Konstin was missing. “Where did you find him, sir?”

Antoine’s mouth has only opened to tell him that such questions can wait until later when he feels it, the sharp piercing pain in his side. He gasps a short breath, the pain lancing deep, the colour draining from the world. Distantly, as if he is someone else, he feels his knees buckle, hears a faint cry going up as Thibault’s arms wrap around him, lower him to the ground.

And it’s so hard to breathe, so hard and suddenly his men are swarming around him, pulling at his uniform, around him and not around Konstin and what does he matter when Konstin is so badly wounded? When Konstin is barely alive? And he can't breathe, his lungs burning, blood hot and metallic on his tongue, black spots dancing before his eyes, and he gasps as fingers probe his side, tries to twist away.

Tell them—he needs to tell them—Konstin—

“Look—look to Daaé,” he chokes out, his lips stiff and clumsy, golden eyes flashing before him, and they are the last thing he knows before the darkness takes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up ridiculously long, but stayed tuned because I *hopefully* will post the next chapter on Sunday!  
> Next up: Further adventures of Konstin and Antoine at the Front.


	5. Fading

_His mother’s voice, soft in his ear, singing an old Swedish lullaby she sang him when he was very small, when he was ill, when he had nightmares. Her soft voice, her fingers lightly brushing his cheek. She has always been so pretty, his mother. So pretty and so gentle and her voice is the prettiest of all._

_He is too tired to open his eyes to see her, his eyes too sore and scratchy, but he turns his head just a little, for to hear her better, and her lips are gentle on his forehead._

_“Just sleep, darling,” she whispers. “Just sleep.”_

* * *

 

Shaking, shaking, the whole world shaking beneath him. An earthquake? They don’t get earthquakes here, not usually. There was one in Rome, once, and all the buildings shook, and he lay on the floor with Antoine’s pale face over him, Antoine shielding him from falling trinkets and books. And if he were able to move, if he were able to move he would roll over and shield Antoine because he could not have it if Antoine got injured protecting him, but the weight of Antoine’s body was too heavy and his breaths were coming in short little gasps, those brown eyes boring into his, and all he could do was stare, stare until the shaking stopped.

Antoine’s lips were soft when they met his, and he slipped his tongue between them without a moment’s hesitation.

* * *

 

_“Tell us a story, Waoul!” Guillaume claps his hands, his dark curls bouncing, and Antoine chimes in with “Yeah!”. No! Raoul tells terrible stories. It’s Nadir that tells the best stories, don’t the twins know that by now? Nadir has all the stories about his homeland and Papa and travelling and the opera, and sometimes they’re a little bit scary but he always makes them funny. Raoul’s stories are_ boring _, and he always looks like he’s trying to figure out what to say but he can’t tell him that because Raoul might get upset, and he doesn’t want to upset Raoul because Raoul is always nice and brings him little sweet things that Mamma would not let him have._

_Raoul laughs and leans forward in his chair, his fingers pressed together so that they look like a church steeple, or a tower. It was Darius that told him the story about the princess in a tower, but it wasn’t as exciting as Nadir would tell it, or as boring as Raoul would._

_“What sort of story?” Raoul asks, a faint smile twitching at the corners of his lips._

_“A story when you were little!”_

_Raoul’s eyes sparkle, the same glow that Mamma gets sometimes when she tells him the stories her Papa told her, about trolls and goblins and ghosts. He’s always wanted to see a ghost. Sometimes he thinks his Papa might be one, creeping around the opera and watching Mamma sing, but when he asked Mamma if Papa is a ghost now she got that sad look and said a soft, “No” and he never asked her again but that doesn’t keep him from wondering._

_It might be nice if Papa were a ghost._

* * *

 

Fingers, fumbling at his throat. Gentle fingers that he knows. Those fingers have been wrapped around his own, have carded through his hair. He would know the touch of them anywhere, their softness beneath the calluses.

Fingers, and a sigh.

“Konstin.” Pain throbbing through him as a hand shakes his shoulder, jarring his ribs. He gasps, his heart pounding with the grinding of his ribs. “ _Konstin_.” His very name sounds urgent, sounds like an emergency.

A whimper is all he can muster, too weak to open his eyes, but he knows that voice, he knows it. He would recognise it anywhere, underwater or in the desert or in the mountains or anywhere. (He has recognised it, in each place and more.)

Antoine. Antoine is here. Antoine has found him. Dear, sweet, beautiful Antoine. Tears sting his eyes just at knowing he is here.

“Oh, Konstin.”

_Oh, Antoine,_ he longs to reply, lips tingling to kiss him, arms aching to hold him close. And he would kiss him, he would, but he can't because they’ll see. Those others will see and they’ll know, and he and Antoine will be locked up and never able to see each other again, and he’ll die, he’ll die if he can’t see Antoine, he’ll die.

“An..” he gasps, the closest he can get to his name, and Antoine’s fingers curl around his own, a hand smoothing back his hair.

“I’m here, Konstin.” The voice is a hoarse whisper, Antoine’s but not Antoine's when it’s beautiful. Antoine’s when it’s stressed, when he’s worried. Surely Antoine isn't worried over _Konstin_. It would be foolish of him to worry…so much else to worry about… “I’m here and I’m going to…I promise, and…to be fine.”

It’s all just a jumble of words, more than he has the strength to work out. Words and words but none of them matter, not really. Not when Antoine is here beside him. _You’ve found me. I knew you would find me._ The thought clings to him, begs to be spoken, but his lips are too stiff and numb.

“An…toine.” The broken name is all he can manage, as if it were a prayer, as if it will keep Antoine from disappearing from him.

“Ssshhh.” A hand stroking his hair, so gentle. “…don't say a word…You’re safe now.”

_I know I’m safe. I just want you to know. And it hurts so terribly._

The pain is coming back now, creeping in, eating at his arm, at his chest, at his leg. The pain will eat him and he’ll die and Antoine won't be able to bring him back. The pain will eat Antoine too, destroy him, and Antoine can’t know pain, he can’t, he isn’t allowed to, it’s not right, he’s supposed to be free of all that, supposed to—

He needs to warn him.

“Hu…urts.” His lips are too stiff, too stiff damn them.

“I know it does…I promise…they’ll fix you up.”

_If you’re not careful they’ll need to fix you up too._

But before he can say it, before he can gasp a single warning, Antoine is lifting him and the pain is burning through his chest and he can't breathe he can't breathe he can't breathe, tears prickling his eyes and lungs gasping can’t breathe can’t—

“…sorry, Konstin…”

And before he can attempt to draw breath to cry out, he’s gone.

* * *

 

_The watch is heavy in his hand. His father’s watch. Mamma gave to him, before he and Antoine started their journey, and he weighs it now in his hand. A gold watch, and a thick chain. Nadir told him once that he took it off Er—off Pap—off his father in a moment of impulse before they buried him, thinking that Mamma might like to have it to hold onto, for the memories. Something of his father’s to always have. It was a lovely thought, he must admit. And it is a lovely watch. But though it’s been weeks since Mamma pressed it into his hand he still can’t get used to carrying it._

_His own watch is much lighter, not that the weight of this watch is the problem. It’s more that he keeps taking it out to look at it, to hold it and wonder. How often did his father do the same? Take the watch out and flick the case open to check the time? There is a miniature little sketch of Mamma tucked inside, and she does not look much older than he is now, her face uncreased and hair wavy long._

_His fingers hover over the sketch, almost of their own accord. His father touched this paper once, held the lead that made the sketch. He’s always known that his father was something of an artist. Mamma has always said that that’s where he got it from, all his sketchbooks full of drawings. But it’s strange to see one of his sketches tucked carefully into the watch case, to really know that he touched this once, too._

_A tear trickles down his cheek and lands on the watch face, but his throat is too tight to cry._

* * *

 

Carried. Someone is carrying him, someone whose back is warm beneath his aching chest, whose neck is soft beneath his lips. Someone…his mother, is it? Carrying him beneath the opera to visit his father? She used to do that all the time, and small boy that he was he would sit and talk for hours to a grave never realising that his father couldn’t hear him, and then he got too old for such fantasies and would go alone to sit in silence, as if the darkness down there might soothe the pain twisting in his heart.

Carrying him… Is it Darius? After scooping him out of somewhere he shouldn't have been? Poor old Darius. Darius would make him tea and tuck him into bed and there would be no aching in his chest, and Darius would pretend not to be worried, pretend not to hover, always finding something to tug at and fix, but Darius always worried.

Konstin’s eye flickers open, his right one, the left sealed shut with blood. It is not his mother carrying him. Not Darius, either, but someone in uniform, with a helmet. Uniform. A helmet. Blonde hair creeping out beneath…Antoine. Antoine? Antoine shouldn’t be carrying him, he’s too tall. He should be carrying Antoine. That’s the way it always is, always… The way it’s supposed to be.

His vision is hazy, and the fog is pressing in like it was so long ago as he lay beneath it, and there is someone walking in front of them, leading them, someone tall and dressed in black but he is too tired to focus and too numb to wonder who it is, and his eye slips shut again, the gentle rhythm of Antoine walking easing him back to sleep.

* * *

 

_His cousin. But he isn’t his cousin, not really. He is his step-cousin, more technically, just like Raoul is not his father but his stepfather. But people never really refer to their step-cousins, so he doesn’t bother and settles for calling him his cousin. He gave up qualifying it for them years ago._

_But though Guillaume and Marguerite are his step-cousins-slash-cousins too, Antoine is so much more than that. Antoine has always been so much more than that._

* * *

 

Voices. Flustered voices. “Commandant de Chagny!” and “Commandant Daaé!” gasped. Arms taking him, lowering him down, fingers fumbling at the buttons of his uniform, whispers of “careful with him” and “shrapnel…gravely wounded.”

He hears the shot before the cry goes up. A distant crack and a soft pfft as the bullet finds flesh and he is being lowered to the ground, the hands leaving him, disappearing.

And faintly, faintly in a voice hoarse and strained he hears “Look to Daaé.” _Look to Daaé—_ but that voice never calls him Daaé, always Konstin. Only, only Konstin.

The world is swimming back into view, blackened pale faces that he doesn’t recognise stark against the fog, one of them whispering, “bullet entered just beneath the ribs” and gasped whimpers from, from somewhere, from his left, from the voice that called him Daaé that never calls him Daaé.

His eyes roll, and through the press of gathered bodies he sees Antoine’s pale face, staring at him, scarlet blood trailing from the corner of his mouth and chest heaving to gasp each breath.

Not Antoine! It can’t be Antoine! It’s not allowed to be Antoine it’s not he won’t let it he won’t he can’t not Antoine. Not—

Tears burn Konstin’s eyes and his vision dims, but this time he fights it. Damn the darkness! Damn the pain! Damn his leg and damn his ribs and damn his eye and damn the tears! He has to stay awake, he has to. Antoine is wounded and he needs to go to him, needs to—needs to be there—needs to hold his hand and promise him he’ll be all right and—and swear he loves him and damn all those fools listening damn them! He needs to get to Antoine needs to—

“Easy, sir, easy.” The hands pin him down, stronger than he is able for, the world greying. They don’t understand, they don’t—

His heart stutters, falters, pain blooming deep inside and he gasps, chokes. And when the darkness takes him, the streak of blood from Antoine’s mouth follows him.

* * *

 

_“Promise me you’ll be safe.” His voice is hoarse, his throat aching tight, but the tears on his cheeks are not his own. They are Antoine’s, brushed against him. “Promise me.” He is aware that he sounds desperate, but he needs to hear it, needs to know._

_“You know I can’t, Konstin.” Antoine’s voice is hoarse, too, hoarser than his own. “You know that.” He presses closer, so that his lips are right against Konstin’s ear and the warmth of his breath stirs the hairs on the back of his neck. “If—if I could promise you that, I would make you promise me the same.”_

_Konstin gasps, one of his own hot tears rolling to join Antoine’s on his cheek. “I’ll try,” he whispers. “I promise I’ll try to be.”_

_“And I promise the same. I promise.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's bonus chapter ended up longer than expected, but please do let me know what you think!
> 
> Up next week: Marguerite at the hospital


	6. Letters and News

It is no less than six hours since Amélie shoved two envelopes into Marguerite’s pocket. The letters arrived just before a convoy of casualties from the dressing stations, and they’ve been run off their feet ever since tending to the wounded men. Surgeries, amputations, changing dressings, checking fevers, administering drugs. Six hours of it, and this is the first proper chance Marguerite has had just to _sit down_.

Though she is off her legs, her calves throb.

It was not a bad round, really. It could have been so much worse. They could be still rushing yet, and at the back of her mind Marguerite cannot help but wonder if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

If they were still rushing, there would be more wounded soldiers to tend to. The fact that there isn’t…the fact that there isn’t does that mean that they were simply not wounded? Or does it merely mean that it is already too late? That they’re already dead?

Her stomach churns and she shudders, bites her lip to ground herself. Such thoughts will not help anyone. It is better that she forget that she ever had them.

The letters weigh heavy in her pocket now.

She will not pull them out yet. She is too tired for that, too exhausted. To read the letters in this state would taint her enjoyment of them, and she would never be able to bear looking at them again, not even to write a response. No. They’ve already waited this long. A little longer will be no harm to them.

Sighing, she wraps her fingers around a mug of hot coffee as if the heat of it alone will revive her. Her eyes are scratchy and dry, but she cannot close them, not yet. If she does she will only see wounded bodies before her again, the pale faces and muddy uniforms, the blood leaking from a hundred tiny shrapnel wounds and long jagged ones too, the yellow fluid-filled blisters on the boys – most of them are not men, far from men – who were gassed. She can hear them, their rasping breaths and whimpers from throats too raw to speak, gasping as if the very air would choke them, their throats already swelling closed.

Those boys came from several sectors away, should never have ended up at this hospital, but there was a mix up in the field and that is how Marguerite found herself holding the hand of a boy that looked no older than Émile, tears leaking from his swollen blind eyes as his chest heaved with the desperation to get _just one breath_. The curé whispered Latin over him and with the holy oil made the sign of the cross on his peeling forehead.

The silence was nauseating when the boy stopped gasping.

Marguerite swallows, her heart clenching as she shakes her head and curls her fingers tighter around her mug. She must not remember him, she must not, she must not. She must banish every thought of the boy, shove him far away. To let herself remember is to let every other wounded boy become him, and she _cannot_ do that, she can _not_. There are enough ghosts already without…without adding him to it.

Her thoughts are disturbed when Amélie slides onto the bench beside her, and musters up a tired smile, her brown eyes heavy. “I’m glad that’s over with,” she says, her voice soft as she sips her own coffee.

“For now,” Marguerite mutters, the words out before she has time to stop them, and Amélie’s eyes widen.

“Don't say that!” The response is expected, too loud and too desperate, but beneath the chatter of other voices it goes unnoticed by the other nurses around them. “Have you opened your letters yet?”

Safe ground. Letters. Yes, best that they talk about them. “Not yet. You?”

Amélie’s sweetheart is on permanent base duty thanks to his weak lungs, stationed somewhere up near Rouen, and he writes her most days usually with little to say. But his letters are one of the few reliable things they have left now.

Amélie nods, drawing a letter from her own pocket.

“René says they were shelled the other night. Only about twenty bad casualties, and a lot of minor cuts and bruises. He’s well, though. Missing me.” She blushes almost as red as her hair. “He wrote a very sweet poem.”

In spite of the tiredness aching in her bones and the awful day it’s been, Marguerite cannot help grinning. Amélie’s René always writes “very sweet poems” and some of them are truly lovely and others…others would make a harlot blush just by their little suggestions. Based on Amélie’s high colour, this one is one of the latter.

“Are you going to show it to me tonight?” She keeps her voice light, innocent, but the very question makes Amélie’s blush deepen, and Marguerite’s lips tingle, her stomach fluttering.

“Only if you open your letters now.” But Amélie’s eyes twinkle with the promise of more, and Marguerite knows that she’ll see the poem regardless.

“I promise you they won't be as exciting as all that.”

“They’re still more exciting than nothing at all. Better to have letters than to have a reason to have none.”

The wisdom in the words is undoubted, and Marguerite sets her mug down on the table, sighing dramatically as she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the two letters. “As you say, ma chérie.”

Amélie has the letters plucked from her hand in a moment, and shuffles them, peering at each one closely. “This one is from Paris, and the writing is particularly delicate so I presume it’s your parents instead of your aunt and uncle.” She waves the letter, and sets it down on the table, and the urge burns in Marguerite’s fingers to take it and open it, but she fights the longing, waits to see what the second letter is. It’s all of two weeks since she’s had anything from her parents, though she had a very lovely letter from Christine last week with a note from her uncle Raoul. But Amélie is waving the second letter, setting that down too and saying, “This one has come from the Adriatic, so it must be your brother Guillaume.”

Excitement bubbles in Marguerite’s stomach. Guillaume. It’s two months since there’s been anything from Guillaume. He must have been on shore again, and it must mean he’s safe.

Her heart is light as she grins. “Give me the Paris letter first.” Guillaume’s letters are so rare it’s always best to savour them and read them second, and the smile that Amélie returns suggests she knew what Marguerite’s choice would be.

* * *

 

Later that evening, the letters are still on Marguerite’s mind. They remain tucked into her pocket, nice and safe and tonight she’ll put them away with the others. The Garnier is throwing a charity gala tonight, apparently. Her parents will be there, and Christine and Raoul of course, and Anja if she has no shift, and little Émile who is not so little any more even if he forever seems twelve to her, even though the last time she was home on leave he had already turned fifteen and stretched from the child she remembered. Her cousins are growing up so fast…

Her heart aches to be with them at the gala. It’s so long since she attended any sort of event, and there’ll be all the beautiful gowns swirling as the ladies dance, and everyone would know her as the daughter of the Comte de Chagny and whisper over how close she came to joining the ballet. She would dance with many men, all that she could, from the ones too old to serve or exempt for some reason, to the officers stationed in Paris, and put them all to shame in the process, and not care a single whit for their whispers of almost-scandal because is it not her birthright? Her mother the former prima ballerina and her godmother the former prima donna?

Surely, surely her going into the ballet would not seem so terrible to all those whisperers now!

And Guillaume. Guillaume has three weeks furlough, but unless he somehow conjures an excuse to come up here she will not see him. He might have a chance of visiting Antoine, when Antoine is back behind the lines again, and Konstin too but even when he is out of the trenches Konstin finds a hundred ways to keep himself busy. But none of them are too likely to find their way to the hospital, and she is less likely to have much time to talk to them even if they did.

Her heart aches, the excitement of the letters died away as she steps into one of the rooms reserved for officers. There is no use in tormenting herself, in wishing for visits that can never happen. Better that she focus on the things that need to be done.

For the time being, there is only one wounded officer left in this room. The other two that were with him are in surgery – she helped bring them down herself. They were both too weak earlier, but they have stabilised now, so there is only this one left, dozing and pallid.

He does not stir as she measures his pulse, and finds it a little high. She takes his chart, and notes it down, eyes scanning for his wounds. Shrapnel embedded in the upper thigh. Amputation recommended due to its depth and proximity to the artery. Fractured vertebrae in the lower back, and her heart sinks to realise that he might not be able to feel his wounds anyway, even without the morphine.

His name catches her eye. Capitaine Edouard Dupuis. Dupuis. Edouard Dupuis. Why does Edouard Dupuis sound familiar? Did she know him in Paris?

He groans in the bed, and snaps the train of her thought. She sets the chart back down and leans in closer to him as his eyes flicker open and he regards her hazily from beneath heavy lids.

“Is there anything I can get you, Capitaine?” She keeps her voice soft, so as not to startle him. A soft voice, she’s found, often works best.

He runs his tongue over his lips, swallows convulsively. “Wa—water.”

Marguerite casts her mind back to the chart. Was there any mention of stomach wounds? No. It was just the leg, and the spine. Well, that’s all right then. She reaches for the pitcher of water on the locker beside him, pours it into the glass that’s there. Sliding an arm under his neck she carefully raises him, and presses the glass to his lips.

“Sip it,” she murmurs, “or it will make you ill.”

He takes two sips, and nods that he has enough, so she sets the glass back on the locker and eases his head down to the pillow. His eyes rove slowly over her face, and his frown deepens.

“Any…any news on Com..mandant Da…aé?” His words are halting, but there is no doubt that that is what he said, and her stomach lurches.

Commandant Daaé? _Konstin?_ Is he one of Konstin’s men? Is Konstin _here_? Why did no one tell her?

“I…,” she swallows, her voice faint, “not that I know of, but I’ll check for you, all right?” She sees him nod but she’s already turning, her heart painfully tight as she walks from the room.

The hall is quiet as she walks down to the nurses’ station, all the time her thoughts spinning. He asked about Konstin. Maybe, maybe it’s not like that. Maybe Konstin isn’t wounded. Maybe Dupuis was supposed to meet with Konstin to discuss something. Maybe Dupuis was simply wondering how the advance went. It’s a normal enough question, after all. Maybe, maybe it’s a different Commandant Daaé! Maybe she’s taken this whole thing up wrong and it’s not Konstin at all just someone who happens to share the same rank and surname as him. Yes, that’s it. That must be it. There can’t be any other explanation than a stray coincidence.

Even as she tries to force herself to believe it, Marguerite knows that the odds of such a coincidence are too low to ever to be possible.

_dear Dupuis…watches for every man…finds a pulse even better than I can…_

Konstin’s words, from a months-old letter, seem as fresh in her mind as if she’s just read them, and Marguerite’s breath catches in her throat. He did write that, didn’t he?

That’s why she knows Dupuis’ name. _Oh, God_.

Amélie is at the nurses’ station with a bundle of charts in her arms, talking quietly to the Matron. Both of them raise their eyes when they hear Marguerite approach, and Amélie pales at the sight of her, the Matron frowning in that way she has when she is about to ask a question.

Marguerite shushes her, but her voice is still faint as she whispers, “Did Commandant Daaé come in with his men?” It’s such a simple question, really, but even asking it takes all the strength Marguerite can muster and the very words leave her legs weak.

Amélie re-balances the charts to hold them with one hand, and reaches for the register, but the Matron shakes her head before she can lay a finger on it. Her eyes are kind, and her voice steady as she answers, “No. The latest news from the line is that he may be missing.”

Missing? _Missing?_ Konstin missing? No. No it’s not right, it can’t be. Not Konstin, of all people. It simply—it simply isn’t _possible_.

The world dims as she sways, and dully she hears someone call her name. Then in the next moment she’s sitting down, Amélie and the Matron both kneeling beside her, and she giggles because it’s ludicrous that she should get weak over such news, she’s not even really related to him, it’s mad.

The Matron asks her something, but she shakes her head and whispers, “I’m fine. I’m fine.” But the words weigh wrong on her tongue, and she does not need them to tell her that she is lying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've enjoyed this chapter, and please let me know what you think!
> 
> Up next week: Christine and Raoul, at the gala. And a telegram the morning after.


	7. A Gala and a Telegram

She chose a blue dress for the gala, to bring out her eyes. Raoul always likes it when something brings out her eyes. It makes him smile that soft smile so that the edges of his own eyes crinkle, and her heart flutters. And as she expected, Raoul smiled appreciatively when he saw her, and folded her in his arms.

Sometimes, she thinks, she would prefer to never ever leave Raoul’s arms.

It was Anja that rushed them out of the embrace. Anja has never been much for galas, but she had an unusual urgency about her tonight that Christine couldn't help but wonder at. Her soft pink dress made her look very pretty and very sweet and altogether so much younger than 19.

They lost her in the crowd shortly after arriving, in the midst of hellos and hand-shaking and have you mets, but Christine was not as worried as perhaps she might have been. It has always been Anja’s great skill to slip away in a crowd.

Only a little while later, she caught Christine’s eye as she danced in the arms of the Capitaine de Courcy. The Capitaine is a handsome man, all things considered. Red hair and blue eyes, and a soft smile. They say he is the illegitimate son of an English lord, but so many rumours swirl about everything that it would be impossible to tell.

His face is still pale from his wounds. They say he is lucky to have survived. If the bullet had entered his chest only a few inches to the left, he would not be dancing tonight, or ever. As it is he is clearly still recovering, and after a turn around the floor he sits and Anja goes to get him a drink.

Anja has become quite the caretaker since the war started.

Christine loses sight of them again after that, because Monsieur Rouché asks for her hand, and it would be remiss of her to refuse the Director. With his square grey beard he has the appearance of a man older than his years, when in fact he is a year younger than she is.

This war has aged them all.

She dances two dances with Rouché and then Raoul cuts in, and the Director cedes to her husband without question. He takes up with Sorelli, and as Raoul takes Christine’s hand out of the side of her eye she sees her friend wink over Rouché’s shoulder at her.

“Have I told you how lovely you look tonight, darling?” Raoul’s voice is gentle in her ear, and she leans her head against his shoulder.

“Several times, my love, but a few more would not hurt.”

“Well then I shall declare it with every breath.” His voice his light, and he steps back, spins her and catches her again. “You are beautiful.” A soft kiss to her forehead. “Divine.” A kiss to her cheek. “And no other woman here could hold a candle to you.” He grins, his eyes dancing, and Christine leans up and presses her lips lightly to his, lingering just long enough to still be decent.

“You flatter me, Monsieur.” She bats her eyes teasingly at him, and catches sight of a faint flush at his throat.

“Nonsense!”

They dance together a long time, content in each other’s arms and though there are other men that she is compelled to dance with for the sake of politeness, she always returns to Raoul.

It is late in the night when they take their leave, and the crowd is dwindling. Capitaine de Courcy has already said his goodbyes, and shook Raoul’s hand as he returned Anja. He kissed her hand, and kissed Christine’s hand with great politeness, and out of the side of her eye Christine could see Anja flush, and a slight smile twitching at Raoul’s lips.

They had a little more champagne, enough so that Christine was slightly lightheaded, and then they said their own goodbyes and walked out with Raoul’s arm linked through her own and Anja following just behind.

The automobile has been brought around and is waiting for them. Raoul helps Christine into the passenger seat, and when Anja has settled into the back he arranges himself in the driver’s seat. They do not often take the auto out now with fuel rationing, but tonight the extra effort of it is no harm, and Raoul is a competent driver, careful and sure.

Though the journey is only short, Christine dozes, her mind full of the gala. Konstin would have enjoyed it. Would have _denied_ that he would enjoy it but would have enjoyed it nonetheless. He would have looked so distinguished in his uniform, tall and proud and elegant. And the young ladies would have been delighted to see him, but he would have spent most of the night talking to Philippe, too frail now for dancing, and to Rouché and Capitaine de Courcy. And Antoine, of course, if Antoine had been there.

They asked for Konstin, Rouché and the Capitaine, and the mothers and wives of others away at the Front. Madame Remarque and Madame Delacroix and Madame Ledoux and more. All asking after him, and all she could do was smile and say he is well, and leave out how with each telegram that comes her heart clenches, how sometimes she sees the rain and sees him dead in it, his face pale and eyes blank and staring.

Sorelli did not ask, but Sorelli knows. Sorelli has the same nightmares too, and instead they talked about Guillaume and how wonderful it is that he has three weeks’ furlough.

The stopping of the auto wakes Christine from her thoughts, and in the next moment the door bangs behind Anja. She’ll rush in, and Émile will be waiting up to hear all about the gala from her, and lament that he was not allowed to go. He is so young, really, but next time, maybe. Next time.

Raoul reaches over, and draws Christine gently to him. She leans her head on his shoulder and sighs, and he kisses her hair. “To bed, my love, I think,” he whispers, and she smiles.

“Yes. To bed.”

* * *

 

It is the shifting of the bed that stirs Christine awake. She was dreaming something, something very sweet. Konstin, standing tall wrapped in his purple dressing gown in front of the fire playing the violin, the room garlanded in red and green for Christmas, Antoine looking at him with that softness in his eyes while Guillaume plays chess against Raoul and Sorelli helps Anja with her balance. Philippe explains ship plans to Émile, and Marguerite sketches the scene, and Christine sits back sipping champagne, content in having her family all here together, a thrill in her heart as Raoul smiles at her across the chessboard.

The tendrils of the dream are already slipping away as she opens her eyes, and the misty light filling the room is a pang in her heart. It is so long since they had a Christmas like that, the family all gathered together. Almost four years, before this war came. Before Konstin and Antoine went to the Front and Guillaume to the sea. Guillaume made it home that first Christmas, while Antoine and Konstin held out against the Germans, knowing it was treason to fraternise with them for Christmas Day, and neither would ever admit to having had even a moment’s silence in the fighting.

But Christine has heard, from more than one tongue, about the guns falling silent as Konstin played his violin, and she’s wondered, more than once in the years since, if Erik would have stood up and played the same. Sometimes, she can almost imagine him…

“I’ll be back in a moment,” Raoul murmurs, kissing her forehead gently as he does the belt of his dressing gown, and she smiles at him, still half-asleep as he slips from the room.

She dozes in his absence, slips back into an older dream, an older memory. There was a Christmas, once, a long time ago, where Konstin, who could not have been more than two, slept in Nadir’s lap with Antoine and Guillaume. And Nadir looked up at her, his arms full of the little boys and that sad faraway look in his eyes, and smiled so much as to ask, _what would Erik think if he could see us now?_

She is woken from the memory by the creak of the door opening, and her eyes flicker open. Blinking a few times to clear her vision, she finds Raoul standing there, as pale as a sheet, an open envelope in his hand.

And in that moment, she knows.

_Konstin_. No! Not Konstin—not—

“Please tell me he’s alive,” she whispers, her voice hoarse, before Raoul has a chance to speak. He has to be alive, he _has_ to. The very thought of the alternative—No! She will not let her mind go there.

The world tilts and suddenly it’s more than thirty-six years ago, and she’s running headlong through the passage under the opera, Darius at her side and every fibre of her screaming that Erik will be all right he _has_ to be all right.

She gasps, and tears burn her eyes and Raoul’s arms wrap tight around her waist pulling her to him, his warm body, his soft words in her ear, her heart pounding so hard it’s all she can hear, drowning him out.

Her heart pounds the beat of _Konstin Konstin Konstin_ over and over again. _Konstin Konstin_ he has to be all right, he has to. He has to be alive. He can’t—he can’t—

And all those times she has seen it come back to her in a flash, flickering before her eyes. Konstin lying still in the rain, his face blankly staring upwards. Konstin gasping for breath after gas. Konstin with blood spurting from his chest from a bullet. A horror reel images.

Her arms remember the weight of him, heavy against her and his head lolling limp on her shoulder but that wasn’t Konstin that was _Erik_ so long ago, Erik not Konstin. Not Konstin.

She gasps a breath, her heart pounding in her ears, and she is back in Raoul’s arms, his hand rubbing soft circles into her back and lips light against her forehead. He holds her until she gets her breath, until the trembling passes, and then holds her a little longer.

But she needs to know, she _needs_ to, and summoning all her strength she whispers, “Tell me.”

Raoul nods and leans back, just enough that she can see the worry clear in his eyes.

“He's missing,” he murmurs, tears in his eyes to mirror her own, “all they know is that he’s missing.”

She snatches the envelope from his hand before he has a chance to stop her and pulls out the folded sheet of paper within, opening it to find a telegram. Her eyes scan it, barely taking in the words

_We regret…Commandant Erik Konstantin Daaé…missing in action…engagement at…_

Missing. Missing. Not dead. Not wounded. Not taken prisoner. Simply missing, as if he disappeared. Missing can mean so much. Missing can be dead and not confirmed. Missing can be left lying alone in No Man’s Land. Missing can be a prisoner and not known.

Missing can be blown up by a bomb and nothing left to find.

Her heart catches in her chest, and the world dims, and when it swims back into view Raoul’s face is hovering over her, blanched white, but all she can feel is emptiness. Nothing but numb emptiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, one actual historical person appears in this chapter. Props if you know who. There are two references to two existing books, and one reference to another PotO adaptation!
> 
> Up next week: Antoine and Konstin, of wounds and rambling.


	8. Floating

The world fades back into view, dim and grey, the fog swaying around him. Antoine is aware of pain, far away, buzzing deep in his left side. Pain. Why is there pain? His thoughts come slow, sluggish as if through mud. A shell. Something about a shell.

No, not a shell. A shot.

He swallows, his tongue stinging, tastes metallic blood in his mouth. He must have bitten it when he threw himself over—over Konstin. Konstin! Konstin was there, somewhere, bloodied and muddied but Konstin. Where—where is Konstin?

He draws breath for to call for him, but the pain blooms deep in his gut and he can only gurgle. Faintly he hears, “Wait!” and a face swims before him, pale and worried, a face he knows. One of his men! Which—he can’t think.

The mouth is moving, the face asking him something, but he cannot make out the words and then there is fumbling at his coat, pulling it open, but he is too tired to ask, and when he tries to raise his hand to lay it on the man’s arm, it falls back to— to—oh, to the stretcher.

Why is he on a stretcher? Konstin should be. Konstin was wounded.

It must be something to do with the pain.

The world fades into darkness, and as it goes Antoine hears, distantly, “…bandages shifted…morphine?” and then he hears no more.

* * *

 

_Capitaine Dupuis frowns at Antoine. “The Commandant is ready to see you, sir. As you requested, I did not tell him who to expect, but I warn you, he is a little…sharp this evening.”_

_Konstin, sharp? Well, it is to be expected. Surely he receives a hundred frustrating guests a day when he is behind the lines, no more than Antoine himself does. But he will settle when he realises just who has called on him._

_“Do not worry about that, Capitaine. Commandant Daaé and I are old friends and I am sure he will be pleased to see me.”_ Old friends _is certainly one way of putting it, and inwardly Antoine chuckles. If the good Capitaine knew the nature of his and Konstin’s friendship he would have an apoplectic fit!_

_The Captaine nods, and opens the door, and Antoine steps through into the room. Konstin does not look up from the letter he is writing, his dark hair falling over his face, pen scribbling furiously. It is as if they have walked in here and become invisible such is the lack of acknowledgement._

_Well, until Konstin sighs and says, still without looking up, “Please be brief and to the point. I have a lot that I need to get through.”_

_And that is all the encouragement Antoine needs to smirk and reply, “Hello to you too, Konstin.”_

_The pen stills, and hovers over the page, and when Konstin’s eyes meet his they are wide with shock. “Antoine?”_

_“In the flesh.”_

* * *

 

The next time he wakes it is to a swarm of faces and probing fingers. There is not pain, not this time, but there is the uncomfortable feeling of something digging inside of him, feeling and searching. He moans weakly, tries to twist away and that draws the attention of a pair of brown eyes.

“We’ve given you some morphine for the pain.” The words make little sense as Antoine struggles to gather his thoughts. What pain? There is no pain! But there is something in him that should not be there and if they would take it out—

The feeling disappears, and he gasps a breath, his heart pounding hard. Faintly he hears, “…buried deep…needs surgery…” But none of it makes sense. He is off the stretcher, that much is clear, and there is no fog, no metal taste in his mouth.

No Konstin. Still no Konstin.

“Where—” his lips struggle to form the words, and the voice that spoke before speaks again, mentions a dressing station but Antoine cannot quite catch it. All he knows is Konstin _isn't here_ and _where_ is he? He has to be here somewhere, he has to. He can't have died, he can't have, he’s not allowed to die and before Antoine knows it his breaths are short and shallow and his heart is so loud it drowns out anything that they say.

“Konst—Konst—”

Over his head he sees the doctors look at each other, or at least they must be doctors if it’s a dressing station, and one, the one who spoke before, shakes his head ever so slightly, and tears burn Antoine’s eyes, but Konstin can't be dead he _can't_ be.

A needle pricks his arm, and he feels something cold slip into his bloodstream, and when tiredness tugs at his eyelids he is too weak to fight it.

* * *

 

Faces and voices. Voices and faces. Turning and indistinguishable. There is the sense of being carried, of being held down, of needles piercing his skin and warm water. Of constriction around his stomach. Of fingers fumbling at his throat and something pressed cold to his chest. And Konstin’s face, as familiar as his own, smiling, laughing, frowning, pale. His face over and over again, interspersed with strangers. All so distant and far away.

Antoine blinks, and the impression of golden eyes dissolves, and the voice asking him a question is so faint he only groans.

* * *

 

The jolting rattle of a van is what wakes him, the wound beneath his ribs burning deep. His eyelids flicker in the darkness of the van, too dark to see much of anything, too closed in. His breath catches in his throat and he gasps, but the breath is too deep for his lungs and he finds himself coughing. Gasping and coughing and gasping and coughing and his heart pounding hard in his throat until he manages to get a proper breath and feels his lungs begin to settle.

A whimper from his left side draws his attention and Antoine turns his head to find Konstin lying there on a stretcher beside him, his face pale and head bandaged and a patch over his eye. Tears of relief prickle Antoine’s eyes, and he blinks rapidly to clear them. He will not have his vision clouded by tears now! Not when he can see Konstin and Konstin is beside him!

Konstin does not wake, not even as they go over another bump that makes Antoine gasp and almost precipitates another coughing fit. As the pounding of his heart eases, Antoine aches to go to him, aches to take him in his arms and hold him and promise him that he will be all right, but he is too weak to move and he is strapped onto the stretcher under heavy blankets and he can’t move he _can't_.

More tears prickle his eyes, and Antoine swallows hard against the lump in his throat. “Konstin,” he whispers, “Konstin,” but Konstin does not stir, and Antoine did not really think he would.

He blinks away the tears, too weak to raise his hand and wipe them, too tired and too sore. Even his eyes are sore, stiff, and even as they adjust further to the darkness he can see that Konstin’s body, too, is hidden by heavy blankets, only his face visible, and Antoine’s stomach churns again as they rattle over another bump but he can't get sick now he’ll only make a mess everywhere he _can't_.

He swallows down the bile in his throat. It is probably for the best that Konstin is unconscious. If he were to see Antoine lying beside him like this he would worry, and when he is in such a state it is best that he not worry.

Still. It would be nice if he were awake. Nice to just…hear his voice. Konstin has always had such a lovely voice. Christine, said once, with that sad look in her eyes that Konstin says she gets sometimes, that he got it from his father.

His father. Konstin’s father. The Erik that Antoine has often heard referred to, but who died before either of them were ever born. A vague memory drifts to him, of Konstin bundled up in his dark cloak, and a hat tilted down over his eyes, whispering, _sometimes I think I see him in the mirror, when I glimpse my eyes before anything else._ Gold hazel eyes, in the fog of a battlefield, the memory incongruous in this darkness.

And in that moment, through the thick soup of his thoughts, Antoine knows who led him to Konstin.

The fact that it was surely Erik, could only _be_ Erik, clicks in Antoine’s brain, and a strange sense of relief washes through him, carrying him back to sleep.

* * *

 

_“I used to think he was a ghost.” Konstin’s voice is faint, his head heavy on Antoine’s chest. “I asked Maman once, when I was very young, if he was a ghost haunting the Garnier. And she got this funny look on her face, as if she might faint, and said no he’s at peace now.” Konstin’s ability to make his voice light and slightly tremulous as Christine’s must surely have been is uncanny and in spite of himself Antoine struggles to contain a smile. “And I never asked her again,” Konstin goes on, and Antoine sighs, cards his fingers through Konstin’s hair, “but I always wondered and now, now I think there must be a part of him, left behind there, and sometimes, when I turn a corner, I think I can see glowing eyes vanishing back into the shadows.”_

_“It’s your imagination, darling.” Antoine keeps his voice steady, but he cannot deny that he is a little perturbed by Konstin’s words. “You want him to be there, so you dream that he is. There is nothing wrong in that.”_

_The weight shifts off Antoine’s chest as Konstin raises himself, and his eyes are troubled as they meet Antoine’s. “But what if he is there? What if he is?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next week: Marguerite receives some unexpected patients


	9. Memories and Worries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reference to drug use and serious injuries.

_Mamma’s hand is cool on his forehead, and through the net of his eyelashes he sees her frown. She moves her hand, presses the back of it to his cheek and then his neck and he shudders at how cold it is, but her frown only deepens._

_“I think I should stay home tonight, Nadir.” Her voice is soft, as if she is afraid of waking him, but he is already awake and she can’t stay home from the opera, she just can’t! It’s a gala night! She’s supposed to be singing Papa’s music! It’s not the same if silly Amelia sings it. It has to be Mamma!_

_Nadir murmurs something softly and Konstin doesn't catch it, but Mamma bites her lip. She shouldn't bite her lip like that. She'll only hurt it and make it bleed and that wouldn't be good for her singing. It’ll keep stretching and bleeding again!_

_“I don't think his fever has changed at all.” Mamma’s voice isn't Mamma’s. It’s strained and wrong. Doesn't she know it’s bad for her to strain her voice?_

_“…the doctor again?” Not the doctor! The doctor pokes too much with his cold hands, always prodding at his neck and his belly and it’s horrible!_

_Through the haze Mamma shakes her head. “He said to send for him if he was worse before morning but he’s not worse. He’s just…the same.” A beat and then, “I think I'll stay.”_

_“No.” Konstin’s throat aches with the word, his voice hoarse but someone needs to say it. “No, Mamma, go.”_

_Her shadow leans in over him, her soft hand wrapping around his. “You’re very ill, Konstin.” She presses her lips softly to his forehead and he squirms against how cool they are. “I should stay with you.”_

_“But,” he swallows, his throat scratching, “I want you to go. To sing Papa’s song.” Tears prickle his eyes, and her fingers are gentle as she dries them._

_“Ssshhh, Konstin. There will be more galas. I can sing his song then. When you are well again I can sing it for you, but I do not like being away right now. I missed more than one performance when your Papa was ill. Tonight I should be here.”_

_“You,” he sighs, and draws in a breath, tears wet as they trickle down his cheeks. Mamma brushes them away as he whispers, “you w-w-weren't singing his song then. Please, Mamma.”_

_His eyes slip fully closed, and distantly he hears Nadir whisper, “…very upset over it…” and Mamma whispers back, “I know.” Neither of them can see, neither of them understand that Mamma has to be the one to sing. Papa will be there and he’ll see her and he’ll be so happy that she’s singing his song. “For Papa, Mamma,” he whispers, his voice faint, “Sing it for Papa.”_

_She kisses his forehead again, and her voice is soft. “All right, älskling, all right. But I’ll come right home after I sing, and Nadir will stay with you while I’m gone, and send for me if you want me. I’ll rush right back, I promise.”_

_Konstin nods, and in spite of the pains aching in all of his bones, he smiles._

* * *

 

Alive. Her boy has to be alive somewhere, he _must_ be. He can—he simply _cannot_ be dead. Even if he is lying wounded he must be alive. Anything else is unacceptable, impossible!

The thought comes to Christine, unbidden, that she thought the same of Erik, once. Even as he lay dead in her arms she tried to convince herself that it was impossible, but this is different. She _knows_ it is different. She will not accept that her son could be dead until someone comes and tells her so, someone more than words written on a scrap of a paper. But for now, for now he must be alive, and she must only think that he is alive.

But still. Still the fear twists deep in her heart, like it did on the bank of the lake so long ago, when she called for Erik and he did not come. And she saw him lying dead, saw him lying sprawled on the parlour floor, saw him slumped over his black couch barely breathing and dead or gravely ill could be the only explanations for why he was not there. And she would have swum to him, across that damned lake, just to see him, just to know, just to be certain that he was all right.

Then he stepped out of the shadows, and revealed that he had been _conducting an experiment._

Would that Konstin were conducting such an experiment. Would that he would walk through the door, and drop his great coat on the floor, and _be_ _here._ Would that she could wrap her arms around him.

It has never been in Konstin’s nature to conduct such cruel experiments.

Christine’s heart twists and she buries her face in the cushion at her shoulder. Raoul’s arms tighten around her, his face nuzzling into her hair as if he knows the terrible thoughts that keep coming back, those horrifying images of Konstin half-buried in mud, of Konstin covered in blood, of Konstin’s white face and blue-tinged lips and red rimmed eyes. And of course he knows, of course, and he must be seeing them too but she cannot turn and try to comfort him, not when every fibre of her is aching to have her son back, is aching to see him here, is aching to _know,_ just to _know,_ one way or the other.

But Raoul does not speak, does not need to speak, not now. And no words that he could say would make a difference now, not when she is telling herself all the same words, that Konstin is more likely alive than dead, that just because the Ministry thinks he is missing he is not necessarily missing, that even if he is missing he might be only wounded or a prisoner and may be found yet. Might have been found already and she just has not heard yet!

_“Perhaps they’re wrong,” Raoul whispered, hours ago now. “Perhaps he is still with his men, coming down the line.”_

_The hope sounded dim, even to her desperate ears. And she could not pretend that she had not already thought of that, had already considered the possibility as something to cling to and then discarded it when she considered that the Ministry would have checked, would have verified it._

_“They would not have sent word unless they were certain.”_

* * *

 

“Why…why can I…can I not...feel my legs?” Capitaine Dupuis’ voice is so very faint, and Marguerite squeezes his hand, brushes her thumb over the back of his fingers. Maybe it is because of Konstin, maybe it is because he was one of the last to see Konstin alive (and he must be alive, he must be), but she feels drawn to the Capitaine, drawn to comfort him moreso than any of the other patients. There is something about him, something in his half-open eyes, and she cannot help the stab of pain in her heart looking at him and how terribly frail he is.

“It is the medication,” she says softly, “for the pain.” She cannot tell him about the damage to his spine, that he may never feel his legs again. He is not the first, oh he is certainly not the _first_ , but she cannot bear to tell him such things, not when he is already so weak.

He nods, and swallows, his eyes fluttering closed. “I…I—Wha—what is your name, mad—mademoiselle?”

“De Chagny. Marguerite De Chagny,” and at her words his eyes flicker open again to reveal a rim of green iris, a faint frown creasing his face.

“De Cha—are…is your brother the…the Com—mandant?”

Her heart stutters. The Commandant? Antoine? Does he know Antoine? Has he seen him? Is he well? Is he _safe_?

“Yes. Yes, he is. Do you know him?”

He licks his lips, his eyes slipping closed again, the effort of speaking too exhausting. “I—I’ve met him. He—he comes to visit Comm—andant Daaé sometimes.”

She cannot pretend that she is not disappointed to have no news of Antoine, but she is not surprised. It is several days since she had a letter from him, and he is surely busy. She cannot find it in herself, either, to be surprised that he visits Konstin. Likely, now, with both units fighting so close together, they see each other behind the lines, or in the trenches. Does he know that Konstin is missing? Does he know what happened to him?

Part of her hopes not. It would worry him, would terrify him. They’ve always been so close, and if he thinks Konstin is missing, is in danger, then it will distract him and he’ll make some sort of dreadful mistake or do something stupid or—

No. _No._ She must not think like that. Such thoughts bode badly. She must not think of Konstin, and she must not think of Antoine. There is only the Capitaine, now, and the other wounded men, and if she lets herself think of her brother or her cousin then she cannot focus on them, and the worry will throb in her heart and she cannot have that now, she _cannot._

With difficulty she smiles for the Capitaine, though her stomach is churning and his eyes are closed, and squeezes his hand one last time before setting it down.

“That’s nice,” she whispers. “Now, Capitaine. You need to rest. They will soon take you to surgery.”

* * *

 

_So cold so cold. Body trembling, skin crawling off, something living beneath it, something biting stinging burning, back, stomach, legs, burning burning burning cold, arms tightening around him, pulling him close, fingers tap-tap-tapping at the back of his neck, skin sloughing, peeling, crumbling, so itchy so itchy—_

_Rake of nails over skin and a hand clasps both of his, grips them tight. “Don’t…scratch, Konstin…draw blood…make it worse.” Impression of eyes, deep brown eyes and falling, falling, tumbling into those eyes but hands catch him, curl around his arms and hold him safe._

_He loses sight of the eyes, darkness back again, and beneath his ear he can feel a heartbeat, feel it thudding against him, his own heart twisting, aching to be closer, closer, arms tightening around him. “…opium wearing off…be all right, my love, be all right…”_

_Antoine’s lips gentle against his forehead are the last he knows for a long time._

* * *

 

Erik’s pocket watch is heavy in her hand, and she cradles it close. Konstin refused to bring it with him when he went to the Front, in case anything ever happened to it, so he gave it back to her for safe keeping, and now she wishes that he _did_ have it, out there with him. It would protect him, protect him better than the Saint Anthony she hung around his neck ever could.

If she closes her eyes, she can still see the day Nadir pressed it into her hand, after lifting it off Erik’s body. And she can see the day, in turn, when she pressed it into Konstin’s hand, before he went off on his tour to Persia. Tears shone in her son’s eyes as his fingers closed around it, and he pursed his lips, and nodded at her, and whispered, “I swear I will take good care of it.”

There was a great solemnity about him, when the war came, and he pressed it back into her hand.

Raoul sets another cup of tea down for her, and shatters her thoughts. He does not speak a word, simply sits beside her and draws her back into his arms, and she lets him. It was he who told Anja the news, his voice soft where Christine’s own had failed, and Anja paled, so much that Christine thought she might faint, but then she nodded, and returned to her room, and when she came back downstairs it was in her nurse’s uniform, and off she went to the hospital though it is her day off, looking half like a ghost but her head up high.

And when Émile came down, and they told him, he went back up to his room and shut himself away, and refused to let in her or Raoul, refused to see anyone, until Philippe came and Émile opened the door for him.

They have always been so close, Émile and Philippe. And Émile and Konstin.

Tears sting her eyes as the image appears before her, of Konstin holding tiny, baby Émile in his arms for the first time, that soft smile on his face. He was so happy, to have a baby brother. So happy.

Her stomach churns at the thought that he might be gone, might—might already be lying dead somewhere, and her stomach churns, the world tilting. How can he be gone? How? And it’s so hard to breathe, so hard, her chest tight and lungs burning and before she knows it she is lying down, and Raoul is cradling her head to his chest, and she gasps into his shirt, the tears trickling from her eyes as he rocks her, his own tears dampening her hair.

“Oh my darling,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. “Oh my darling.”

* * *

 

Capitaine Dupuis does not stir as she takes his blood pressure, his face remaining pale and slack. It is a little lower than she would like, a little lower than it really should be. Marguerite makes a note of it, a check of worry in her heart. He has had enough stimulants for now, and another dose might put too much strain on him, but his blood pressure really is too low. Maybe—no, no. It is too much of a risk. She will check on him again in half an hour and see how he is, and if he needs it then he can have it then.

He has not stirred at all since his surgery.

His pulse faltered twice beneath her fingers, body still too weak despite transfusions and fluids and warming, to endure the trauma of surgery. She can still feel it, the fluttering of the beats and the coolness of his skin, and the surgeon, Carrière, stopped his work to listen to his heart. He had already taken the Capitaine’s leg, reasoning _that will kill him first_ , and though he frowned listening to his heart he decided that the Capitaine was strong enough to continue with the surgery, and ordered him rolled over so he could work on his back.

Marguerite sighs and sets the chart down, forcing the thoughts away. The Lieutenant, in the bed beside Capitaine Dupuis, needs her attention too. He had shrapnel removed from his chest, and has not woken yet either, but with him she is not surprised. The nurse that was there, Minette, said that he stopped breathing during his surgery, and it was a rush to replace the gas-oxygen combination with pure oxygen and stimulate him to take a breath.

Marguerite hears the rattle of his breathing, and knows that if he wakes again he will be fortunate.

The other Capitaine, opposite the Lieutenant, lost both legs, one at the line with a shell and one here. But his surgery passed off normally, and though he is sleeping now he has been awake twice in the last hour and a half, and lucid the second time. Marguerite checks him now, and finds his pulse normal and his breathing normal, but cannot find it within her to be relieved for him.

The rush of footsteps down the hall pulls Marguerite from her thoughts, and she looks up to find Amélie flushed, looking in the door.

“An ambulance…has pulled in,” she gasps, “two Commandants, one in a bad way. Matron wants you down there.”

Marguerite swallows, and sets the chart down. Two Commandants? For two officers of that rank to come in together is _unusual_ to say the least, and she nods, and hitches her skirt, and follows Amélie already rushing down the hall.

* * *

 

_It’s the slight shifting of the bed that wakes him. “How has he been?” Mamma’s voice is hushed, even more than it was earlier._

_“He fell asleep shortly after you left, and never stirred.” Nadir’s voice is hushed too, more hushed than Konstin has ever heard it._

_Mamma’s fingers are soft as they tuck some of his hair behind his ear, lovely and soft, like silk, and Konstin sighs, leaning into her touch. “Thank you for looking after him, Nadir.”_

_“Of course, Christine. The gala was good?”_

_“I was too distracted to sing my best, but I doubt if anyone noticed except for Raoul. Everything else was splendid.”_

_“That’s good.” A yawn, before, “I think I’ll turn in. Do you want any tea?”_

_“Maybe just some peppermint, in case he wakes in the night. It should help to settle him.”_

_The door creaks, and a moment later Mamma’s arms wrap around him, pulling him close. He nuzzles into her, feeling so warm and safe, and she kisses his hair and whispers, “Oh, my darling, precious little boy.” Her voice is hoarse, and he is halfway back to sleep when she adds, “You remind me so much of your Papa, so much.”_

* * *

 

“You need to sleep, darling.” Raoul’s voice is soft, and his eyes troubled as he squeezes her hand. His face is creased with worry, eyes soft, and though she knows he is right, knows she really should get some sleep, how can she sleep now? How can she bring herself to sleep when she does not know if her boy is safe or not?

She shakes her head. “How can I, Raoul? How can I?”

“It’s not going to find him any faster if you wear yourself out.”

“I know, but—But if I try to sleep I’ll only see him wounded and—” Her heart is pounding, pounding so fast she can feel it in her throat, but Raoul smooths his hand over her hair, and pulls her close to that she does not hear her heart, but his, and he kisses her hair.

“It’s all right. It’s all right, Christine. He’ll be all right.”

“There is no way you can know that, no way.” Her voice is hoarse, and he tightens his arms around her, and sighs.

“I know. But until we know anything for certain, we have to have hope. We have to have hope.”

* * *

 

The moment her eyes fall on Konstin’s face, Marguerite’s head spins. Her legs buckle beneath her, and she catches herself on the edge of the bed they’ve lifted him into. She did not expect it to be him. She should have thought of him, and she knows by the way Amélie looks at her that she did not expect it to be him either.

He does not wake, the eye she can see remaining stubbornly closed, and the other covered by the bandage wrapped around his forehead. The Matron is pulling off the sheets over him, revealing more bandages around his chest, his abdomen, his left arm, both legs, bandages and bandages and bandages. What happened to him? What could have happened to him? Gas? A shell?

Dupuis said there was a shell, said he lost sight of him with the explosion. And this is what happened to him.

But Amélie said there were _two_ Commandants. _Two_.

At the same moment, Minette, working over the other casualty with several nurses, calls her. “Marguerite!” And like that, just like that, Marguerite knows.

Her legs stumble as she crosses the gap between bed, her breath caught in her throat, and hardly does she recognise blonde hair and a sharp nose and hazy brown eyes as _her brother,_ when the colour drains from the world, and she sways.

* * *

 

_“You look better.” Antoine smiles at him as he settles back into the chair he’s occupied for the last several days, and Konstin sighs, and stretches out his hand. Antoine takes it, and raises it gently to his lips._

_“I feel better.” It’s true. The worst of the aches have eased from his joints, and he is neither too hot nor too cold, and his stomach does not feel as if it is about to clench tight and heave out the weak broth he managed to drink._

_“Good.” Antoine’s smile dies away, and he leans in, his eyes sharp and warning. “And you are never touching another grain of opium. Do you promise me?”_

_The very_ word _opium makes Konstin shiver. “I promise.”_


	10. Waiting, Hoping, Praying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for reference to serious wounds, though they are not described in graphic detail, as well as reference to surgery and blood transfusions.
> 
> Also, I experimented a little in this chapter by mixing in past tense. I'm not certain if it works or not, but please do let me know what you think of it.

There is something tremendously soothing about just sitting, and listening to him breathe. In. And out. And in. And out. And in. And out. Over and over, softly repetitious. A repetition that it would be impossible to ever grow tired of.

Dupuis frowns slightly, and shifts in his sleep, and Marguerite wonders if, distantly, he might be aware of what has happened to him, might know that he has lost his leg. Nobody has told him, yet, decided that the shock of _that_ news could wait until he is stronger, when finding out is less likely to make his condition worse.

His fingers twitch between her own, and she squeezes them gently. Matron told her to sleep, told her to _rest_ , but how can she rest now? How can she sleep when the image plays before her again and again of Konstin gasping for breath, those too-fast, shallow gasps as if he were racing for breath?

She swallows and tries to push the memory away, concentrates on Dupuis and his still face. Dupuis does not gasp. Dupuis’ breaths come easy, soft, and she can close her eyes and listen to them, just listen to them, and pretend, for a little while, that all is well.

When he was lucid, a little while ago, she told him about Konstin. Not about how badly he is wounded, only that he has been found and is in getting looked after. And Dupuis smiled at her, or, his lips twitched as if he would smile, if he were stronger, and such a look of relief passed over his face Marguerite’s heart fluttered to see it.

For a moment, in spite of his wounds and his weakness, he was almost handsome.

But rest. Matron ordered her to rest, as they carried Konstin away. And Marguerite almost laughed in her face, but nobody would have said anything if she had. They would have merely called her hysterical, and chalked it down to her “great emotional distress” and blood loss.

They tried to stop her donating. Oh, they _tried._ They insisted that it was a man’s duty, that a woman had no place doing such a thing, only an orderly could, someone who never _knew_ Antoine, someone who does not quite literally share blood with him. And she looked the surgeon, Lefevre, dead in the eye with the glare her mother taught her and all the sternness she could summon, and told Lefevre that if he wanted a man to donate blood to her brother then he may as well go to the Adriatic and find Guillaume on whatever ship he happens to be on, because he is not going to get a closer blood match anywhere else.

(Lefevre, of course, does not need to know that Guillaume is currently on his way to Paris for his furlough. It would have weakened her argument. Though somehow she suspects it was more Matron’s look of _she is not going to settle unless you let her donate_ than any defiance on her own part that convinced Lefevre to give in.)

Her arm still stings from the needle that pierced her skin, but Antoine got all the blood that he needed and that is what matters.

She will have to tell him, when he has recovered from his surgery, that he owes her his life now. It will amuse him, for a little while, until he asks about Konstin.

Konstin. Her thoughts keep circling back to him. There was no time for the agglutination tests before his transfusion. He simply needed blood too badly for that, and the first fit orderly, Anatole, was pulled aside. Anatole is a seasoned donor, suitable for so many of the men, but the very first ounce of his blood that entered Konstin’s bloodstream caused a reaction in thirty seconds, those shallow gasps that she can still hear no matter how she tries to attune herself to Dupuis’ breathing. And sweat broke out on Konstin’s skin, and when Lefevre checked his good eye the pupil had dilated so much that almost no iris was visible.

(It was Minette who confessed that bit to her.)

Marguerite could not bear to watch, and she focused her gaze on Antoine’s face, Antoine’s pale face which did not react as her blood entered his body, and as the Matron drew another ounce of blood from her, she listened as they requisitioned an oxygen tank and Lefevre fiddled with it until Konstin’s breathing eased.

Anatole was pushed away and another donor found. And then, then there was no rejection.

Lying there half-sedated, Antoine could never have known what had happened. And that is one secret which Marguerite will keep from him forever. One of so many, now.

She is not quite convinced that this is real. That any of this is real. The war is real. Enough men, enough _boys_ , have died beneath her hands for her to know that. But this, today. Antoine and Konstin being brought in as if they were just the same as anyone else. Just another two bodies torn and broken, another two officers, barely named. Not her brother, not her cousin, but faceless casualties. And as she watched them carry Konstin out for x-rays, watched Lefevre palpate Antoine’s stomach, watched Amélie and Minette and the others hang fluids and check pulses and place hot water bottles, she felt as if she had fallen into a parallel world, as if the Earth itself tilted the moment Dupuis asked, faintly, if there was any news of Daaé. How can it be real? How can any of it be real?

Perhaps she accidentally dosed herself with morphine, and is dreaming all of this. And she’ll wake to Amélie admonishing her, and a letter from Antoine telling her he is on furlough, and a telegram from Konstin enquiring after his wounded men, and find that Dupuis never existed, that none of this had ever really happened at all.

A dream. Just a dream.

The dull throb in her arm, and the warmth of Dupuis’ hand in hers, tell her that she is deluding herself. None of this has ever been a dream.

* * *

 

“Konstin! Where—where’s Konstin?” Antoine’s eyes were wide as they searched her face, his breaths coming in short gasps, fingers groping at her sleeve.

She pressed a finger to his lips in the effort to shush him, but he jerked his head away from her touch, tears glistening in his eyes. “Is he—is he—”

“Sssshhhh. Sssshhhh. He’s alive. I really don’t know how he is. The surgeon is with him.” The latter bit was true. Lefevre was indeed with him, examining every inch of him and Matron was removing what pieces of shrapnel she could, but Marguerite knew perfectly well how he was. She interrogated Minette who carried him back from the x-rays, but she was not going to tell Antoine that.

But Marguerite has never been able to lie to her brother, and even with morphine under his skin and flowing through his blood he was able to see right through her.

“You’re lying,” he hissed, and her chest tightened at his words. But she could not very well tell him the truth, she could not! It would worry him, make him worse! And he needed to be kept quiet to have any chance of being strong enough for surgery.

But she could tell him a little bit. Just a little bit.

She sighed, and tightened her grip on Antoine’s fingers. “Matron is taking shrapnel out of his chest.” At her words Antoine sucked in a breath, his eyes widening, and she rushed to reassure him before he could interrupt her. “It’s not in very deep! Some of it is between his ribs, lodged in the cartilage, and in his breastbone. It hasn’t gone through to his heart or his lungs. There’s really nothing to worry about.” _From that_ , she thought, but did not add.

His eyes searched hers, but instead of pressing for more details, he merely nodded. “And…and his face? His head?” Some of the strain had drained from his voice, and Marguerite strove to keep her own voice low to soothe him.

“There is no damage to his skull. Only some lacerations, nothing too serious.” She would not mention the broken knee, or the shrapnel in Konstin’s thigh and hip, or the hairline fracture in his other hip, or his stomach wound, or his arm, or the shrapnel in his eye. No. She would not mention any of that. Not unless Antoine asked her directly about it, when she would have no other choice but to be honest with him.

Possibly he dis not even know about those other injuries, because his eyes slipped closed and he sighed. “That’s good. You—you will stay…with him, won’t you? When—when they take me away? I—I would not like…him to be alone.”

She nodded, though he could not see her, and stroked a lock of hair back from his forehead. “Of course I will. Of course.”

* * *

 

The Lieutenant who was in the bed beside Dupuis is gone. He died sometime while Marguerite was sitting with Konstin. She cannot say she is surprised. The damage to his lungs was simply too great, and he was fortunate to survive surgery. Dupuis does not mention him, does not say much of anything, only regards her hand wrapped around his own with heavy-lidded eyes.

He stays quiet even as the Matron measures his pulse, and his blood pressure, and administers a dose of atropine to help his heart. She does not comment on Marguerite being with him, on her not being in bed as she was instructed, and says, simply, “Your brother is out of surgery. It went well.”

Marguerite does not ask about Konstin, deciding that if there were news then Matron would tell her, and nods. Matron moves on to the other Capitaine, the one who lost both legs, and Dupuis raises his eyes to meet Marguerite’s own.

“Your brother?” His voice is faint, so faint she has to lean in closer to hear him.

“He came in a little while ago. Gut shot.” The simplest way of putting it though, as she knows now from Carrière who took charge of him from Lefevre, the majority of the damage is to the omentum, sparing the abdominal organs.

Thank God for small mercies.

“I’m…sorry.” Dupuis swallows, and then, a beat later, “I hope—I hope he makes it.”

* * *

 

True to her word, as soon as they carried Antoine out for surgery Marguerite settled in beside Konstin. He had not woken of his own accord. Not with the transfusions, and not with the fluids, and not with the washing or the hot water bottles, or the picking out of shrapnel. Lefevre woke him twice, to be certain he had not slipped into a coma, and by all accounts he was lucid and able to answer the perfunctory questions, though he fumbled when it came to what had happened to him.

“To be expected with such a concussion,” Lefevre shrugged, and made a note, and Konstin dozed off again.

They put a patch over his left eye, to shield it from the light. One of the first things Lefevre did after the x-ray was to remove the piece of shrapnel lodged in it. His eyes—for something to have happened to his eyes—Marguerite clenched her teeth tight to quell the roiling nausea in her stomach.

Her hands lay in her lap, worrying her handkerchief. The sight of him so wounded, so, so badly broken with so many bandages wrapped around him made her fear that to touch him at all makes might only hurt him more, might only inflict more pain. The fingers of his left hand were poking out from beneath the bandaged splint holding his wrist together, and her own fingers ached to brush over them so that he could know he was not alone, but touching him seemed like such a crime, and her words all caught in her throat. And all she could do was sit, and listen to Lefevre and Mabeuf as they discussed him in hushed undertones.

Mabeuf wanted to operate, to remove the shrapnel from Konstin’s abdomen and his hip and his thighs. Lefevre was caught between removing the shrapnel, and removing his left leg, and Marguerite burned to scream at him, to scream that he _cannot take Konstin’s leg_ , but all that came out though her clenched teeth was a whimper, and she tightened her fingers in her tangled handkerchief.

The surgeons decided, after measuring his pulse and his blood pressure, and frowning and prodding and listening to his lungs and his stomach, that he was not strong enough for surgerythen , possibly not strong enough to endure an amputation at all, and though it felt like it should be a reprieve it did not loosen the bands of iron around Marguerite’s chest that made it so hard for her to breathe.

(That still make it so hard for her to breathe)

They moved on, to a sous-lieutenant who has lost part of his jaw in a shell-blast and whose whole face was bandaged, and she was left to sit there, alone beside her unconscious cousin who isn’t really her cousin, not by blood, but _dammit_ his mother is married to her uncle and he was like a third brother to her when she was a little girl and that _makes_ him her cousin, and anyone who so much as _dares_ to tell her to leave his side could just _go to hell_.

(No one told her that. No one else here, in this hospital, knows the complexity of her relationship to him other than Antoine and Amélie, and Antoine doesn’t care, and Amélie understands.)

Her eyes fell to the white metal capsule resting on Konstin’s chest from the gold chain around his neck, and the wedding ring resting beside it hanging from a matching chain. Where Konstin, a man who has always refused to court any woman, found a wedding ring, Marguerite could not fathom, and it puzzled her. If he had a sweetheart hidden somewhere they would surely know, and he could never have gotten secretly married. Though Konstin can be very secretive, having a secret wife is too dramatic, too like something in an opera, even for him.

So where did he get a wedding ring?

And the thought came to her, sitting there, as she watched the shining gold band rise and fall in time with his breathing, that perhaps it was his father’s. His father’s ring, worn into battle to keep him safe, like some sort of a talisman. Tears prickled her eyes at the thought, (prickle her eyes now again at the memory of the thought), and she could see him as if she were there, as if it were a memory and not something she imagined, Konstin sitting by a fire and turning that ring in his hand, lost in thought the way he used to be with his pocket watch, and a new ache throbbed dully in her heart, thinking of him longing for his father, the father he never knew.

The ring from his father, and the Saint Anthony in its metal capsule from his mother.

Marguerite’s hand raised of its own volition and reached down her uniform to pull out her own Saint Anthony in its little capsule, the one Christine hung around her neck before she left for this hospital. “I know you will be nursing,” she said, her voice hoarse and the faintest glimmer of a tear in her eye, “but nurses need protecting too.” And Marguerite’s mother swallowed when she saw it, and pressed a new set of dark blue rosary beads into her hand.

(The rosary beads live beneath her pillow, and she holds them each night, and aches to be home, aches for her mother to cradle her close and for the war to be over.)

She sat there for what feels like hours beside Konstin, but can only be one at most, her mind numb and fear bubbling nebulously, watching each minute shift of his face, twitch of his fingers, the way his uncovered eyelid fluttered as if it might open, as if he might be hovering just beneath the surface of consciousness. She clasped her Saint Anthony tight, felt the cold metal nestled against her palm.

Her thoughts returned, over and over, to Antoine, lying in surgery. Matron forbade her from following him in, from sitting and watching as Carrière cut him open to find the bullet lodged somewhere within him. And she ached to be there, ached to be close to him, and to talk to him though with the pull of the gas he would not be able to hear her, and promise him that he would be all right, promise that he would be safe, and well soon enough, promise that he was not alone with strangers. But to see it, to see the glint of Carrière’s scalpel dulled with her brother’s blood, to see that same blood trickle and run down Antoine’s pale skin, to listen to the instructions of _suction_ and _suture_ and the call for a pulse check… Her stomach churned. She could picture it, could see it perfectly, the whole scene of him lying there, has seen it already with so many others, but for it to be her brother’s pulse beneath her fingers—It was all she could do not to vomit.

How have they gotten here? How have they gotten to where she is the one who must assure her older brother that he will be well, the same older brother that used to take her into his arms when she was a little girl and had nightmares? Even when Guillaume first went to the sea, Antoine was still there, always ready to protect her from imaginary monsters, and he would tell her stories, stories of the adventures that he and Konstin planned to go on, the places they would visit and things they would see. His stories would ease her to sleep, and she would dream that she was on those adventures with them, through mountains and deserts and the snow of the northland. And she would wake, still nestled in his arms, and find him asleep, and drift back into peaceful dreams listening to his soft breathing.

She was ten when he went to Persia. It was never the same without him, and he was never quite the same when he came back. He was always a little more anxious, a little more troubled, a little more prone to getting lost in thought.

And Konstin came back sadder, with that haunted look in his eyes that only deepened when the war came. And there was nothing that Marguerite could do for either of them, but they were always still there for her.

It was the soft hand of the curé that tore her from her thoughts, from her memories of her childhood. He squeezed her shoulder, and nodded at her, not speaking a word, not acknowledging what he must surely have known, that there is her cousin lying before him and in surgery was her brother. He merely nodded, then crossed over and sat down by Konstin’s other side, and lay down his Bible, withdrawing his little case from his pocket. The case with the oils and the holy water, that Marguerite has seen so many times, and her vision swam, bile rising in her throat.

Not that case, not that Latin, not—not _Konstin_. Oh, _God_ not Konstin.

She couldn’t take in the words she couldn’t, not when they were being said for Konstin. She could only watch as the curé dipped his finger into the oil, and made the sign of the cross on Konstin’s forehead, and over his heart. He murmured the Latin softly, blessed each of his wounds, and the tears she had held in for so long, ever since Dupuis asked for Konstin and she realised he was missing, trickled down her cheeks, blurred her vision, and it was only dimly that she saw the curé gently open Konstin’s mouth and lay the Eucharist on his tongue. She gasps, pain lancing through her heart, and closed her eyes tight, unable to bear the sight a moment longer, every fibre of her burning to push the curé away, to push him away and tell him that _there is no need to give Konstin Extreme Unction_ , no _need_ because he is _not dying_ he’s _not_ , and as soon as Carrière or Lefevre or Mabeuf or any of them get him into surgery he will be _fine_ , he _will_ , he _has to be_ , she will not _allow_ him to die. She promised Antoine that she would stay with him and that he would live and be well, and she will not let him make her break her word to her brother, she will _not_.

In spite of herself, in spite of her fear that she could hurt him, the fear that she would only bring him more pain, she reached out and curled her fingers around Konstin’s, and squeezed them gently. He did not stir, not twitch, and his fingers were so cold, and when the curé fell silent, and squeezed her shoulder again before moving on to tend to someone else, she at last found words to speak, in the first prayer that came to her.

“Salve Regina, mater misericordiae…”

_Please, God, let him live._

* * *

 

If she could be as numb as Dupuis, now, it might be a relief. To not have to think, to not have to wonder, to not have to worry. To have morphine flowing through her blood, dulling every sense, every thought, so all she can do is lie there, and exist, blissfully unaware.

Dupuis is sleeping peacefully, more peacefully than he has in hours. It will be another while before he wakes, and longer after that before he looks for her or asks after Konstin. She gives his hand one last squeeze, and sets it down gently beside him, tucking the blankets tighter around him to keep him warm. It would not do to let him get cold now.

In the end, the surgeons decided that they could wait no longer to operate on Konstin, that surgery was the only option. She is not certain how much they will be able to do, how much he is strong enough to endure, but they will not take his leg. They would have to take too much of it, and he is certainly not strong enough for that. They will simply have to do what they can.

She is relieved she is not in there, to see him laid out beneath their knives. And she is too tired, now, to even picture it.

She should send a telegram to Christine, to tell her that he has been found and save her from worrying any longer. But she cannot bear to send her a telegram now. What if he dies in surgery, simply stops breathing like the young lieutenant did? What could they do, only try to stimulate him to draw breath? Rub his breastbone and breathe for him themselves in the hope he might start breathing himself. And what if his heart stopped then, unable to bear the strain any more, what then? Only prop his legs up to get blood back to his heart, and shoot him up with adrenaline, and hope. And hoping never works, not in cases like that.

And in the meantime, while they would be fighting to bring him back, Christine would be sitting back in Paris, relieved that her son is alive, is _definitely_ alive because she, Marguerite, has seen him, has sat with him. Only for another telegram to come then and say, _sorry, no, he died_.

No. No it is best to wait until he is out of surgery, and avoid such a nightmare happening.

(There are so many things that could happen afterwards, so many complications. But no, no, she will not entertain such a possibility. He will survive the surgery and he will be fine, be fine, just _fine_.)

And her mother. She will have to wire her mother about Antoine. But it is unfair to wire her mother and not wire Christine, and for now, while her mother thinks Antoine is well, is it not best to leave her thinking that? At least for a little longer, before Marguerite brings that worry down on her?

It is best to wait before she wires either of them, and then wire them at the same time. For now, she can go and sit with Antoine, and wait for him to wake, and be ready to assure him that Konstin is still living.

And with one last brush of her fingers over Dupuis’ hand, she stands and walks away.


	11. News

Flicker of golden eyes, fading into the darkness. A pale face floats before him, one eye covered the other closed, lips parted, tinged blue. His fingers ache to stretch out, to trace the cheek of that face, feel the cool skin beneath their tips. Learn the face, love it.

The name is on the tip of his tongue, just out of reach. Something with a “c”, or a “k”. Hard, then soft. As soft as his hands, the hands that match with that face, wrapping around his waist, pulling him closer for two bodies to meet.

Two bodies. One body. One body carried on his back through the fog, over scarred, pitted earth. Screeches of shells, cries of men, and that body on his back, head lolling limply.

That body. Most precious body in the world. Most precious of them all…

The golden eyes flicker again in the darkness, staring at that pale face, sadness tugging at their edges. The golden eyes that led him through the darkness.

He draws a breath, pain shooting across his belly, and the darkness flows over him, drowning eyes, face, and all.

* * *

 

Raoul has given up on trying to persuade her to sleep. He convinced her to go as far as their bed, and lie down where he can hold her easier. But sleep? Sleep is completely out of the question.

She tries to think of Konstin as a little boy, tries to remember him burrowing in against her and pleading with her for a story about papa, his papa. Erik. But the memories are worn, faint, the soft clutch of his hands lost, and when she tries to reach for them, tries to reach for the little boy Konstin was across thirty years, they slip between her fingers, and she can’t catch him, can’t find him, sees only a man with his father’s eyes, plucking the strings of a violin with long fingers and staring into the cloudy distance, as if staring could put an end to the dull thunder of guns so far away, too close.

When did that boy become that man? When? And why are they lost to her now, boy and man both? Why?

* * *

 

His eyes flutter open, and a face hovers over him, a different face than before, a wisp of auburn hair falling over the forehead from beneath a white hat. The face smiles slightly, brown eyes kind.

“Your pulse is quite normal, Commandant.” Her voice is lilting, the accent of the country, drawing up an image of golden sun on wheat. “Your temperature is a little high, but nothing to worry about. Your surgery went well.” Surgery? Someone said something about surgery a long time ago, a face like his own, brow furrowed and features pinched. Mar…Marguerite! It was Marguerite, and his own voice asked her to take care…to take care of Konstin.

Konstin.

It comes tumbling back to Antoine all at once. Konstin in the shell crater. Carrying Konstin on his back. Jolting and pain. The pinch of needles in his arm, and Marguerite, his hand folded between her fingers, promising that she would stay with Konstin, would not leave him alone. “Wh—where—”

The girl, the _nurse_ , shushes him softly. “No. Don’t try to speak yet. Your sister, Marguerite, she was here a little while ago, but she was so worn out that she fell asleep beside you, and Matron insisted she go to bed. That’s where she is now, in bed. I can send for her for you, if you want.”

But he is already shaking his head before she is finished. “No. No. Konstin. Where—”

Her face frowns, puzzled, but then realisation dawns in her eyes. “Kons—Oh! Commandant Daaé. Marguerite says that’s what you all call him. Why, he’s in the next bed over, if you just turn your head.” She says something more, words which are drowned out, which do not matter as he turns his head and finds Konstin where she promised, lying in the next bed, his face pale and the blankets pulled up to his chin. Asleep. Asleep, but _there._ Asleep but alive, as Antoine can see by the rise and fall of the blankets with his breath. _Alive._ And tears burn Antoine’s eyes, but they don’t matter, don’t matter a damn thing when Konstin is there, is safe, and the tears blur his vision, and the nurse is wiping them away, is murmuring gently, but the words don’t matter, and none of it matters. And the force of his relief is such that it pulls him back under to the darkness.

And when his fingers twitch, he could swear he feels someone else’s between them.

* * *

 

Marguerite knows the moment Antoine loses consciousness because his fingers loosen in her own. Part of her aches to have been here while he was awake, fully awake, to have spoken to him and have him reply. But a larger part of her is relieved to see him sleep. When he is asleep, she does not have to see the worry in his eyes each time he looks at Konstin.

And she is too tired, too hollow inside, to pretend for him that everything is all right.

It was difficult enough to downplay matters in the letters she wrote, one to her mother, one to Christine. Yes, she told both of them about the wound Antoine suffered, and the _wounds_ that Konstin has, but it was not easy, not even with both of them recovering after surgery.

It was difficult enough to send telegrams, vague even as they are. But letters? With letters she is expected to go into detail, expected to reveal what happened to both of them, and she could not say the things she really meant for fear of worrying her mother and Christine further.

She could not write that Konstin’s surgery had come close.

It is Minette’s own word, close. And it is the word she used when Marguerite asked her how things had gone. “It was close,” she said, her eyes sorry. “It was very close.” And close, in Minette’s world, can mean anything from a sudden drop in blood pressure to the discovery of terrible internal bleeding to simply stopping breathing, and it was on the tip of Marguerite’s tongue to ask Minette what, exactly, she meant by _close,_ but the nausea churning in her gut told her that she is better off not knowing.

A whimper draws Marguerite’s attention, but it is not from Antoine. Antoine’s face is still smooth, unlined in sleep thanks to the morphine, and when she hears a second whimper she looks over her shoulder and finds Konstin’s face contorted, his brow furrowed. He moans, gasps, and she sets Antoine’s hand down and turns her chair so that she is facing him instead.

“Konstin,” she whispers, taking his good hand and squeezing it. “Konstin, you’re all right. You’re all right, I promise.”

His uncovered eye flickers open, the golden hue in his iris shining bright, but he looks right over her shoulder, right past her as if she is not there at all, and his lips form words that she cannot read until he whimpers a clear, drawn out “Annn…Annnnt—”

“Sssshhh, Konstin.” She presses her finger to his lips to try and quiet him, but he shakes his head and a tear trickles from the corner of his eye.

“Ant…Antoine.”

Antoine. _Antoine._ Does Konstin know? Was he there? They were in the ambulance together. Surely that means that he knows. He was hardly unconscious through _all_ of that.

Marguerite swallows the lump in her throat, and smooths her hand over his hair. The bandage around his head is hiding most of his it, and what is not hidden has thin strands of silver through it, clear now after being washed. It is an incongruous thing to notice, such a particular detail, and her heart aches.  Grey hair. Konstin never had grey hair before.

“He’s right here, Konstin.” She keeps her voice low, as soothing as she can so as not to upset him more. “He’s right here in the next bed.” And gently, she helps him to turn his head.

His breath falters the moment he catches sight of Antoine, and he sighs, his fingers twitching in her hand. He does not speak, does not breathe a single word, but the pain and worry in his eyes, pain that morphine can do nothing for, are so clear that he does not need to speak.

“He is going to be all right now.” And still her voice is soft, as soft as it can be. “He’s just sleeping. The morphine is making him tired, and he needs all of the rest he can get, but he will be all right.” _Should_ be all right, if he does not develop any infection, she amends in her mind but does not add. And for long minutes, long minutes that Marguerite dare not count, Konstin simply stares at Antoine without making a sound, not a whimper, not a moan. And she feels as if she is intruding on something private, on something too intimate for words, and the hairs prickle uncomfortably on the back of her neck, but she stays sitting there, simply holding Konstin’s hand, until his grip slackens and his eye flickers closed, and he sighs.

Her fingers gently seek out the pulse in his wrist, to reassure herself more than anything, and finds it beating steady but weak. Still weak. Weaker than she would like but perhaps to be expected. And swallowing hard, she sets his hand down, drawing the blankets up tighter around him. It would not do to let him get cold

The hollowness inside of her has not eased. Instead, having seen the tender way in which Konstin could look at Antoine, even full of morphine, the hollowness seems only to have grown, a yawning chasm inside of her chest. They are together, each knowing the other is beside him, and what use is she here? What can she do only hover and worry?

And Matron will not let her lift a finger to do anything else, not for another day at least until she can be certain that donating blood has not had any adverse reaction on her.

It’s just…just so _frustrating,_ and flexing her fingers to ease the stiffness from them, Marguerite stands and walks out, leaving both Konstin and Antoine sleeping peacefully. She should go to her quarters, and sleep too for a time. She would if she were sensible. But even knowing Antoine and Konstin are peaceful for now she cannot settle. There are so many things that can still go wrong, so many possible infections, and they both had abdominal surgery which only makes it worse, and Konstin has his myriad other wounds. How can she rest now?

No. She cannot go back to the nurses’ quarters, and her feet carry her, almost without realising it, down the hall to the small ward where Dupuis is with a handful of other wounded officers.

And she stops short at the door.

Matron is in there, standing at Dupuis’ side and blocking Marguerite’s view of his face, and Lefevre is palpating Dupuis’ abdomen, his hands poking and pressing on the skin. His abdomen? But, he had no abdominal wound.

Even at this distance, she can tell that Lefevre is frowning.

Matron says something, a question by the tone of it though Marguerite does not catch the words. Lefevre shakes his head, and Marguerite swallows, her breath catching in her throat as she strains to listen.

“No…seems to be a bleed…likely small at first…asymptomatic…still continuing…abdomen is rigid and tender, particularly around the spleen… would explain the blood pressure and pulse…prepare him for surgery…”

It feels as if the world has stopped spinning, simply stalled, and all of the air has drained from it. Marguerite’s knees buckle, and she lurches, catches herself on the wall. _Not another surgery. Not for Dupuis, no. It can’t be. He barely survived the last one! He can’t—he won’t—_ But Lefevre is still palpating his stomach and frowning, and her vision blurs, blood rushing in her ears. _Please, God, not Dupuis. Let him come through safe, please._

* * *

 

“Mamma.” Émile’s voice is soft, and Christine raises her head to find him standing in the doorway, his face ashen and an envelope in his hand. “There’s a telegram for you, Mamma.”

Her stomach churns at the very thought. A telegram. Another telegram. A telegram to tell her her boy is officially missing. Or, or a telegram to tell her he has been taken prisoner, or a telegram—a telegram telling her that her boy, her precious boy, is dead. _Not a telegram. Anything but a telegram_.

Distantly she feels herself sit up, and stretch out her hand. The paper of the envelope brushes her palm and she pulls it to her, her fingers trembling, heart pounding, as she opens it.

She reads the words, but she cannot understand them. It is as if they are another language. As if they are about somebody else, somebody else’s son so far away and not her own. Tears blur her vision and she blinks them away, the words still making no sense.

Raoul tenses beside her and whispers, “Is he—” But even he cannot finish the thought, and she can hear his breaths coming short through the fog that dulls her senses, that makes it so hard to think.

His fingers are gentle as they ease the telegram from her hand, and he inhales sharply.

Émile’s voice trembles, and he sounds so very young, so much younger than sixteen, as he asks, “What is it, Papa? Mamma?”

Raoul clears his throat. “It—it’s from Marguerite. I—it says, Konstin here. Stop. Gravely wounded. Stop. Surgery went well. Stop. Antoine also wounded. Stop. More to follow by letter. final stop.” His voice is faint as he murmurs, “He’s alive.”

Alive. _Alive._ The word echoes through Christine’s brain, and relief bubbles briefly in her heart, but it is that phrase that her mind snags on, that chills her blood and leaves her cold, that phrase _gravely wounded._ Wounded. Grave.

Fear twists new in her stomach, icy fear that leaves her nauseous. Alive, but wounded. Wounded, but alive.

Grave.

Gravely ill. That was what Darius said to her, once, so long ago. _Erik is gravely ill_. And she knew. She knew in her heart what it meant, what _he_ meant. And barely an hour later, Erik was dead, dead in her arms, his head heavy on her shoulder and she can still feel it, can still feel the last shuddering breath he took.

And now Konstin, gravely wounded. Likely dying, dying so far away from her and she can’t go to him, can’t take him in her arms, can’t hold him and promise he’ll be all right, he’ll get well, can’t tell him she loves him, loves him so very much, and the very thought of him lying dying feels as if someone has reached into her chest and pulled her heart out and it’s so hard to breathe, so hard, and she finds herself bent over, Raoul’s fingers tapping the back of her neck trying to distract her, trying to cut her thoughts short and Émile’s voice is still trembling as he whispers, “He’ll be all right, Mamma, he’ll be all right,” and she wishes she could believe him, wishes she could cling to those words but she can’t, she can’t, and all she can see is Konstin stretched before her, his face white and blood trailing from his lips. And Raoul pulls her to him, Raoul holds her close, and she can feel his heart pounding beneath her ear but all she wants is Konstin, only Konstin.

* * *

 

A figure in black settles at the edge of his bed, blurred with the dullness of his vision. His fingers twitch upon the sheets, but he has not the strength to raise them, the pain heavy and distant in his arm. There’s someone he should be looking for, someone who was here before, lying beside him, but he can’t…can’t think, can’t remember.

He groans, or must, because a voice is shushing him softly, a voice he has never heard before and yet his heart twists and he gasps.

“Konstantin,” the voice is soft, cool fingers brushing against his cheek. “Do not try to move, dear boy, just rest.” Golden eyes frown slightly, that cool hand resting on his forehead.

The name comes to him through the haze, stiff on his lips. “Papa.”

“Ssshhh.” One cool finger presses to his lips, silencing him. “Don't say a word. You’ll only waste your strength.”

Already the darkness is creeping back in, blazing streaks of shellfire against the insides of his eyelids. The world flickers and he gasps, his chest aching, thrott tight and burning and he can't breathe can't breathe can't—

“Ssshhh. Ssshhh.” Soft singing reaches his ears, catches his heart in a language that swims deep in his mind, the impression of soft silks and jade eyes, and he heard that song so many times, sung to him softly in his boyhood so long ago, but the voice is different now, the voice…

“That’s it, my son. That’s it. Deep breaths.”

The air whistles in his throat, freer now, easier, and he gasps, the pain blooming beneath his heart.

“The pain will not trouble you long, I promise.”

And the voice is right. Hardly have the words reached his ears when the pain eases, ebbs away, those cool fingers curled around his hand. “Papa. Papa.” His lips form the name almost in spite of himself, over and over again, a string of _Papa papa papa_ and this time the voice does not shush him, merely murmurs softly something he can't understand, that slips over him as soft as a wave.

“Don't…go.” He slurs the words, groping across the sheets until the cool hand takes his own again, the golden eyes crinkled soft and sad.

“I’ll stay as long as you want me to.”

He nods, his neck stiff and sore and murmurs, “Good.” There is so much, so much he’s wanted to tell that voice, all his life, but the words won't come. He swallows, sighs, the voice soft in his ear whispering, “Sleep easy, my boy. Just sleep.”

_Just sleep._

_Just_

_sleep._

Thin, cool lips, pressed to his forehead, are the last thing that he feels before he slips into the darkness.


	12. Contemplations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a family tree of the characters, please follow this link: http://littlelonghairedoutlaw.tumblr.com/post/165187221391/the-promised-wraiths-family-tree-which-i-meant-to

“I thought him dead.” Antoine’s voice is faint even to his own ears, and though Konstin is sleeping (he seems to be sleeping a lot), it is best that he not hear. It would only trouble him to know that—to know.

Marguerite does not interrupt, simply nods for him to go on, and he can see, even though tiredness pulls at his eyelids, the worry creasing her mouth. Marguerite’s worry always shows in her mouth, and the way she purses her lips. She’s been like that since she was a little girl, when she would crawl in beside him after having nightmares, her eyes wide and her mouth creased. She is far from a little girl now, but if he narrows his eyes, lets them slip slightly out of focus, she could be all of seven years old again.

(Strange tappings at the window are the least of their worries now.)

The image fades away again, leaving Marguerite as the grown woman she has become, and Antoine sighs, shifts slightly in the bed. He has the distinct impression that he has been lying down too long, but he is too tired to move, his body too heavy and somewhere, in the back of his mind, lingers the fear that if he _did_ try to stand, then his legs would simply buckle beneath him.

He shakes the thought away, mind drifting back to Konstin, back to his story.

“He was in a shell crater,” he whispers, his lips stiff but he needs to speak the words, needs to—needs to know that it was real. (It was real. Oh, it was.) And he can still see him, can still see the blood smeared down his face, his head lolling limp, can feel the ground shake beneath him as the shells crashed and Konstin’s breath was warm on his throat. “And I—I looked for a pulse, but I couldn’t find one, and his skin was so cold that I was certain—certain—but then I felt the barest throb, and realised he was still breathing.” He draws a breath, a lump in his throat that makes his voice hoarse. “That was when the strafe started.”

He sees her swallow, but he cannot pay much attention, not when he can still feel the world shaking, can still feel the pounding of his heart in his ears, can still feel Konstin’s body beneath him. “I lay over him, to keep him safe.”

She sucks in a breath, her fingers tightening around his own.

“After the strafe passed I—I tried to see what wounds he had but there was so much blood,” and his throat tightens, lips tingling with the memory of Konstin’s skin as he kissed his forehead but he cannot tell her that bit, “and he woke but he was in so much—so much pain and when—when I tried to lift him,” his lips are dry, and Marguerite dampens them with a little water, and vaguely he remembers something about his not being allowed to drink anything yet, “he—he passed out again.” Tears burn his eyes, slip from the corners, and Marguerite is shushing him now, the tips of her fingers gentle as they wipe the tears away.

“It’s all right, Antoine. It’s all right. He’s safe now, he’s safe.” Her voice is soft, and her arms wrap around him, draw him to her, and all Antoine can think is _I just want him to wake up why won’t he wake up? Why? I don’t want him to die don’t let him die_ but all that comes out is a whimper, and she is shushing him and stroking his hair the way Mother used to when he was small but all he wants is Konstin, Konstin to hold him and Konstin to kiss him and Konstin to tell him he’s all right and Konstin to quirk that weary smile and call him a fool for worrying so when he is _perfectly well, thank you very much,_ but Konstin is lying there, just lying there lost to the world, and Antoine turns his head, away from Marguerite, to look at him, just to look.

His face is almost as pale as the bandage around his head, mouth slack, and it is only the good side of his face that Antoine can see, the side that was not bloodied. The dim light casts shadows under his eye, along his cheekbone, make him look even more ill, his fingers limp where they lie on the linen sheet beside him. But Antoine’s eyes do not linger on the still face, instead wander to Konstin’s chest, the soft rise and fall of the sheets as he breathes. In, and out. And in, and out. So gentle, those breaths, so gentle…

And slowly, slowly Antoine feels himself coming back, feels his heart settling and the tightness of his throat easing, the chasm inside of his chest not quite so vast. Konstin is sleeping, just sleeping. He needs to sleep if he is going to get well. Sleep is good.

Pain aches beneath his ribs as Marguerite gently loosens her grip on him, but it is not so very bad, reminds him that this is real, that Konstin is alive. _Konstin is alive._

And somehow, with that thought, what happened out there does not seem so terrible. He is alive. He is alive, and that is all that matters.

Marguerite dries his tears with her handkerchief and asks, her voice low, “How did you bring him back?”

_Bring him back_. Golden eyes and the face of a skull pass before him again. And looking at Konstin now, at the visible planes of his face, Antoine can see the similarity to that skull, though Konstin’s features are not quite so sharp, and the angle of his nose is—is very lovely. “I—I got him onto my back, and I followed…I followed his—his father back to the trench.”

“His father?” Even without seeing her, Antoine knows that her brow is furrowed, and he swallows.

“It must have been. It—He had—he had Konstin’s eyes.”

“Antoine—” Tired as he is, he can still detect the edge of disbelief in her voice.

“The battlefields are…they are full of ghosts, Marguerite. Ghosts and wraiths, and they kind of, they kind of coalesce out of the mist and the smoke and it—it was Erik. I know it was. It could be no one else.”

_And,_ he thinks, his eyes slipping closed, _I do not want it to be anyone else._

* * *

 

How many times has she made this journey? How many times has she walked along this path? How many times has she stood or knelt or sat before this grave?

So many times. Thousands of times. Alone, or with Nadir, or Konstin, or even Raoul on a few exceptional occasions though it always feels odd to be here with him, as if she is betraying someone.

Betraying Raoul, by still loving Erik. And betraying Erik by loving Raoul.

In the earliest days, before she allowed Raoul to court her again, she tried to reconcile herself to the notion by telling herself that Erik wanted her to marry Raoul. Erik sent her off with Raoul, once, and it was her choice to return. And he asked Raoul to take care of her. After it all, he did not object to the thought of her being with him. He wanted her to be.

There was a time, back then, when she felt certain that a day would come that she would cease to ache for Erik. Certain that there would be a day where time and distance healed most of the wound his death inflicted, where she could think of him without paired stabs of pain and longing. Where she would forget the cadence of his voice, and the shine of his eyes, and the way his fingers were hesitantly gentle brushing against her skin. Certain that if she did not cease to love him then she would undoubtedly cease to be _in_ love with him, that her love for Raoul would eclipse that for Erik.

And she _feared_ that such a day could come. Especially with how short their time together was, a handful of months and nothing more.

But it never did. And across thirty-six years (thirty-five, to be accurate, thirty-five years and ten months, all adding up to thousands of days that she still feels in her soul) she cannot help but love him still, cannot help but feel tears burning her eyes at the thought of what they could have had, what they never got to have, cannot help the sudden memories of him as she is going about her day, as if she could, if she wished, brush up against him across all of those years.

Even now (especially now, with—with the news of Konstin) she aches to thread her fingers through his, and kiss his cheek, and hold him, just hold him. Just to feel him against her once more.

But she is not here, today, out of longing for Erik. She is not laying down roses at his secret grave because she wishes to be close to him again.

(Though she does. Oh, how she does. And she has never told Raoul the depth of that longing, but part of her suspects he knows.)

No. She is here today for the sake of their son.

Their son. That baby that lived beneath her heart even as Erik died, the hidden life unknown to her until months later. And she wondered, at the time, if some part of him knew, even inside of her womb, that his father was dead. And as she held him she feared that the whole thing had scarred him somehow, as if part of his soul was tainted by it. She was little more than child herself, hardly older than Anja is now, and sometimes it feels as if it were a world away, in another lifetime, and sometimes it feels as if it were only yesterday.

(Everything from before the war feels as if it belongs to another lifetime. Not just her time with Erik.)

(She still struggles to wrap her head around the fact that she is already older than Erik was when he died.)

That baby, who grew into a boy and then a man. And now he is off lying wounded (gravely, though she tries not to think the word, tries to maintain some sort of composure standing at Erik’s resting place), wounded thanks to this war that feels as if it has been going on for a hundred years, as if there has never been anything _but_ shellfire lighting the night sky and the rattle of guns, and broken bodies living and dead coming home.

She swallows, and curls her fingers around the rosary beads in her pocket. “You have to protect him,” she whispers, as if Erik were standing here beside her, as if he were able to hear her wherever he is now (she has always talked to him as if he can hear her), and if she tries, if she lets the dark lake shore fade away, she can almost see him in his black dress suit, his eyes heavy and sad. “I know—I know he’s already wounded. I know it’s already happened, but you cannot let him die, Erik. I can—I can’t lose him too. You have to keep him alive, and Antoine too. You have to.”

And tears trickle from the corners of her eyes, and roll down her cheeks to fall to the dirt. But the trickle does not turn into a flood, not like it would have even hours ago. She is too hollow inside, worry twisting black in her stomach, to many tears left to cry. And she sighs, and lets her eyes slip closed, and stands. Just stands, her mind drifting blank, the rosary beads wrapped around her fingers an anchor.

* * *

 

It used to be a parlour, or a small secluded meeting room. Marguerite did not see it then. By the time she arrived here, late in 1914, it had already been converted, the château as it stood into a clearing station, then a hospital, and sometimes a clearing station again, depending on how the Front shifts. Half-hospital, half-station. Such a far cry from the opulence that once filled these halls.

The ballroom itself is the operating theatre, and sometimes as she sits monitoring the pulse of some broken soldier, she looks at the bodies laid out, four or five all being worked on at the same time, at the blood dripping to the floor, and wonders how there ever could have been a time before this.

But this room, this little room is so far from that, too. This little room still maintain a little of its splendour, in gilt-lined walls and frescoes. Too pretty, really, to be used as anything but the chapel. The first curé claimed it for himself after arriving, declared it only fitting that such a beautiful room be given over to the Lord.

They transferred him to the lines a year later. Last she heard, there was nothing left of him to be found.

The current curé, Dumas, holds a small service here every morning that she has never attended. More often it is used for the funerals, several bodies sometimes lying ready all at once, covered under a single service then taken out and buried.

She attends as many of the funeral services as she can. It seems only fitting.

The builders of this château, the family who designed this room, the woman of the house who, like her, may have been the daughter of a Comte, likely never envisaged its being used as a hospital. Doubtless they never expected such a war as this, for the world to come tumbling down in such a way. At another time, at any other time, Marguerite might wonder who they were. Titled people, presumably. Did they have many sons? Did twins run in the family? Was it tradition for the boys to go to the sea? So many questions she might ask, but all the wondering feels like ash at the back of her throat now.

What does it matter who they were? There is only this.

Likely only a handful of funerals ever took place here. Less than a hundred, maybe, depending on how long this place has stood. Two hundred years, or more, and a smattering of funerals across that time. And yet, yet in the two and a half years since she has been here, there have been more funerals than she could ever hope to count.

The chapel is quiet, today. Only her, kneeling in a pew that the orderlies put together early on. Not even Dumas is to be seen, and at another time she might be relieved but not now, not today. Is he off giving Extreme Unction to other soldiers, more men brought in on the brink of death like he did with Konstin? One last sacrament forgiving them their sins so they may rest in peace in the hereafter?

How can there be a hereafter after this?

Perhaps there is none. Perhaps all these dead are condemned to wander as ghosts, eternally bound to the earth and unable to move on. Antoine said that the battlefields are full of ghosts, and try as she may to pin such words on the morphine in his blood, his eyes were altogether too lucid. Could he, really, have seen the Erik who has only ever inhabited stories for her? And if he did, if Erik were really there, does Konstin know that his father is the reason he is alive right now? Her heart twists painfully at the very thought.

Dumas may be sitting with Dupuis, even now. Making the sign of the cross on his forehead and murmuring Latin and laying the Eucharist on his tongue. Her stomach churns to think it.

She should have been with him through his surgery. She was there for the first one, after all, and she’s been with him since and held his hand and soothed him. She should have been there again, and she told that to Matron but Matron insisted that the best place for her is away from surgery of any kind, at least until tomorrow, and when Marguerite said that she is capable of monitoring his pulse, Matron stood firm and said no, saying it would be too much strain on her after donating blood to Antoine, and on top of the _mental strain_ of Antoine and Konstin, brother and cousin both wounded, both here. And even as Marguerite said it is worse strain to stay outside of surgery and wonder, Matron remained steadfast so that all that Marguerite could do was stand there fighting the tightness in her throat as they carried Dupuis away, his fingers hanging limply off the side of the stretcher.

He is out of his surgery, now. Still alive (thank God). Amélie, Amélie knew that she badly wanted to know how things had gone, and so went and asked Sophie who had been there, to spare Marguerite the trouble of doing it. And Sophie said that they found the bleeding and stopped it, and everything went as it should, but _went as it should_ with internal bleeding is almost like Minette saying any surgery was _close._ And Marguerite knows, oh how she _knows,_ that went well does not always mean _is_ well or _will be_ well, and often simply means well, _for now_ , the coda at the end a dark reminder of the multitudinous things that can go wrong, even after surgery, and her fingers tremble.

She should be there, when he wakes. To soothe him and hold his hand. Perhaps he will ask for her, his eyes still dull from the gas. But she cannot go to see him, not now. She cannot bear to see him like that, unconscious and pale, skin ashen and lips faintly blue in spite of the transfused blood in his veins. Just as she cannot bear to see Antoine like that, cannot face, again, the sight of Konstin like that so soon after last sitting with him, the thought of seeing Dupuis in such a state makes her stomach churn.

She reaches into her pocket, withdraws the two chains she unclasped from around Konstin’s neck before he went into surgery. The Saint Anthony, and the wedding band, and she curls her fingers tighter around them, and squeezes them as if that will help him to get well, will help all of those terrible wounds to heal. The thought of him—the thought of him slipping away—

How could she ever tell Antoine? How could he ever bear it? She can still hear him, can still hear the pain and fear in his voice as he told her about finding Konstin out there, can see the terror in his eyes at the thought of losing Konstin, and the gentleness and relief each time he looks over to find Konstin asleep in the next bed. They have always been close, so very close, closer even than Antoine and Guillaume, and losing Konstin (her heart clenches painfully tight) losing Konstin would break him.

Even to tell Dupuis—but she might not even need to tell Dupuis. He could so easily slip away, too. That bleeding—her lungs tighten and it is so hard to breathe, so hard, and her fingers squeeze the Saint Anthony, the wedding band, but there is no magic that either of them can work now. There is only waiting. Only the endless waiting.

And her fingers ache to curl around Dupuis’ own, to raise them to her lips and kiss his knuckles, but the pain throbs deep in her chest at the thought of seeing him like that now, and she gasps, tears burning her eyes, but there is nothing she can do, nothing, except kneel here as if her prayers could ever hope to be enough.

* * *

 

_With trembling fingers Konstin wipes the blood from Antoine’s lips, and gently, gently, closes his mouth. His eyes are half-open slits reflecting the grey of the fog, but Konstin cannot bear to close them, to seal them away from the world forever. Antoine can't be gone. Surely he is only pretending, acting! He has always been such a good actor, could have taken to the stage if he wished to, if his name had not dictated his future._

_A distant keening noise reaches Konstin’s ears, and it takes him a moment to realise it is coming from him, his aching jaw clenched tight. Every fibre of him insists that this is wrong, this is unnatural. People like Antoine are not supposed to die like this, are supposed to live forever. But here he is, lying in Konstin’s arms, and he does not even blink as Konstin’s tears fall on his face._

_A choked-off whimper in Konstin’s throat, and he drops Antoine, stumbles away retching. It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real. It’s an act, it’s a dream it’s—it’s opium. Yes! An opium hallucination. Nadir always did warn him away from it, and the fog is not fog but smoke._

_At the revelation the fog clears, and he is standing in a dimly-lit red room, the stem of an opium pipe between his fingers. Antoine smiles up at him from the floor, eyes drooping drowsily, already in the land of dreams and Konstin sways as his knees buckle._

_“I’ssss very ssssstrong,” Antoine slurs, slumping back on the floor, propped only by his elbow, and Konstin finds himself smiling without ever intending to smile, leaning in to press their lips together. “Not here, Konsssstin. Too many people.”_

_The room is empty aside from them, but the hairs stir on the back of Konstin’s neck. They do that so often, tuned to the things he cannot see. Ghosts, sprites, demons. His mother is full of ghost stories, said her Papa used to tell her them._

_Would Konstin’s Papa have told him the same, if he had been here?_

_Konstin’s heart twists, tears falling from his eyes, and they are not in an opium den anymore but in a carriage on a train, a private carriage, and Antoine's arms are wrapped around him, holding him safe from the world and its terrible whispers._

_“It’s all right,” he whispers softly, kissing Konstin’s hair. “It’s all right. It doesn't matter what they say what he was. What matters is what your mother says, and Nadir. They knew him best. And I know there were bad things, terrible things, but there were wonderful things too, right? About music, and art, and animals and so much more and that’s who he was, darling, not what those people who never knew him say.”_

_And Konstin whimpers and nods against him, and Antoine strokes his hair and holds him close, until the rocking of the train slowly lulls him to sleep._


	13. In Limbo

Dupuis’ hand is limp in hers, and she twines the chain of her Saint Anthony with his fingers. His eyes are heavy with the morphine, watching her dully. He was delirious, earlier, when he woke, and Minette who was in the room changing the dressings of an amputee (left arm, just above the elbow) had a difficult time trying to settle him, trying to assure him that he was all right. It was her who gave him the extra dose of morphine, the only way to ensure he could get some rest as the gas from the surgery left his system.

It was Minette who, afterwards, found her in the chapel to tell her that he wanted to see her, wanted her to sit with him, for a time. So Marguerite went to him, and when she took his hand and asked how he _feels now, Capitaine?_ he blinked heavily at her, and whispered, his lips barely moving, _call me Edou…ard._

Edouard. She can call him Edouard but she cannot think of him as that. That would be getting too close, developing an attachment. They must not use first names. That is the cardinal rule.

She is not certain she has ever been able to remember the first name of any other man who has passed through they have all blurred so that even their faces are hazy. But Edou— _Dupuis_ could never be hazy.

He is not merely pale, but pallid, skin blanched and clammy and locks of dark hair sticking to his forehead. With her hand that is not holding his she smooths that hair back, presses her wrist to his throat to feel his pulse.

(Still fast, still too fast as it beats against hers, and she tells herself it is the blood loss, tells herself it is the strain of the second surgery, tells herself it will stabilise soon, but if having her pulse resting against his would match his to hers, then she would keep her wrist there for as long as it takes.)

It was Konstin. He wanted to know how Konstin is now, only he called him _Com…man…dant Die…ay_ the words fractured with his weakness and the thickness of his tongue. And she told him that he was resting now, and left out the part that it feels like a check in her heart each time she sees him, each time she thinks of how very frail he is, and that Konstin has not enquired how he, Dupuis, is doing, because each time he has woken he has not been quite conscious, has only wanted to know about Antoine.

Antoine. It always comes back to Antoine. And with Antoine it always seems to come back to Konstin, and something about it, something about both of them, niggles something at the back of her mind, and she cannot decipher what feels so strange about the way they ask after each other.

It is so very different to how Dupuis asks after Konstin. With Dupuis there is concern. But with Antoine, with Konstin, there is an undercurrent of an ache in their voices, an edge of desperation, as if their own lives depend on the answer.

It must be because of Antoine finding Konstin out there. It must be.

“Marguerite.” Amélie’s voice pulls Marguerite from her thoughts, and from the side of her eye as she turns her head she sees Dupuis sigh. Amélie is biting her lip, always a sign that she is troubled, and as she jerks her head Marguerite gently sets Dupuis’ hand down on the bed, and fixes the sheets covering him.

“Just rest for a little while,” she murmurs, and he nods, his eyes slipping closed. Her Saint Anthony is still twined with his fingers, and for a moment she hesitates over whether or not to ease it from his grip, but in the next moment she resolves to leave it with him. Let it be some protection to him now.

(He needs it more than her.)

Slowly, she raises herself from her chair and quietly leaves the room to stand beside Amélie, her stomach churning as she eyes the way she bites her lip. _Please don’t let it be Antoine or Konstin. Please._ “What is it?” she keeps her voice low, so as neither Dupuis nor any of the other wounded men in rooms on either side of the hall can hear. It can only be bad news when Amélie is calling her out.

But it not Antoine, or Konstin. The way Amélie’s fingers curl around hers confirm that, the slight squeeze of reassurance. It is not them, but the moment she speaks, Marguerite’s blood runs cold.

“Matron says we need your help.” She, too, keeps her voice low. “We need to send as many convalescents away as possible. There’s an ambulance convoy expected in the next few hours.”

* * *

 

It was Italy, Italy where they got together. It happened one night outside of Rome, the sky above them a canopy of twinkling stars that made Konstin's eyes shine as if they were jewels. They both had had too much wine, and Antoine was feeling poetic, trying to compose lyrics aloud by the campfire, and Konstin was plucking the strings of his violin, his fingers long and elegant. And it was whatever way Antoine looked at him, at the curve of his cheek and the angle of his nose, the soft curl of his hair against the nape of his neck, whatever way he looked at Konstin that took his breath away, made his heart stall, and in the next moment Antoine had leaned in and pressed his lips to Konstin's.

It only took a moment, a moment in which Konstin sighed, and leaned closer to Antoine and then he was kissing him back as they fell to the ground, violin and poetry forgotten.

The memory comes to Antoine now, drifts to him through the haze of his brain. The press of Konstin's body, the soft flick of his tongue against Antoine's own, the heady must of chianti on his lips, the way he moaned as Antoine slipped a hand up his shirt, felt the warmth of his skin, fingers smoothing the trail of hair leading from his navel.

One night in Italy. And the rest of their lives since.

It was by the bank of the lake under the Garnier that they pledged their lives to each other, five years later. They had both graduated from Saint-Cyr as lieutenants, and went down there one night in their uniforms. And Konstin had never looked so dashing as he did that night with his hair combed back. The rings were Antoine's own idea. He had measured Konstin's finger one night as he slept, his hand resting on Antoine's hip. And tears trickled down Konstin's cheek as Antoine slipped the ring onto his finger, and kissed it, and for a long time they stood together on the bank, just wrapped in each other's arms, holding on.

(Afterwards they crossed the lake in the little boat, Konstin piloting it, and in the little house hidden away they played music on the phonograph Konstin installed there years earlier, and danced, and drank some of the stock of thirty-year old wine, dark with age, and they slept the night on the divan wrapped in each other's arms.)

Caught half between the worlds of waking and sleeping, the thought drifts to Antoine that maybe, maybe if they ever get back to Paris, he will venture down beneath the Garnier and bring up a couple of bottles of that wine, as a gift for Konstin, to celebrate their—their still being alive.

Why do they need to celebrate being alive? Of course, they are alive.

The fact there is even a question of their being alive troubles Antoine, and he frowns as he opens his eyes expecting to find Konstin's face, expecting Konstin to berate him that soft way for being dramatic, but he finds only an unfamiliar woman, smiling kindly, and pain throbbing beneath his ribs.

"I've changed your dressings, Commandant." Her voice is low, but her words are puzzling.

Dressings? Why, why would he have dress—Oh. It comes back to him, slowly, the memory of getting shot. The memory of hands clutching him, of leaving Konstin.

Where is Konstin?

 _In the other bed_ , someone told him a long time ago, _the other bed._ And Antoine turns his head, blinking heavily, and finds him there, his face slack with sleep.

"He is resting comfortably, now, and in a little while we will tend to his dressings too." The nurse’s voice is still low, and the very kindness of it seeps into Antoine’s bones, makes him sigh.

 _That's good_ , he thinks, lips too stiff to speak, his eyes fluttering closed.  _Tend to him all he needs you to. Keep him comfortable_.

And he drops off into sleep again almost without realising it.

* * *

 

_Pain. Pain in his arms, pain in his legs, pain in his chest and his head and his face. A world of burning pain but he cannot move, cannot ease the pressure, must keep pressing and pressing and—_

_The blood keeps welling up between his fingers, sticky and hot and scarlet against the white of his skin, trickling in a dark stream over the back of his hand. Where are his gloves? He is supposed to be wearing gloves, dammit! Did he lose them out there? No time to think of that now, must keep the pressure on. Pressure stops bleeding if there’s enough pressure, but there must not be enough pressure even with both of his hands leaning down heavily because the blood is spreading, spreading and staining the fabric of the uniform, leaving it wet and heavy and too tough to cut through, too tough to pull away, but he must do something, do something because the boy is bleeding out beneath him, and even the torn piece of shirt he’s using to keep pressure on the wound is slick now with blood._

_A stomach wound. A bullet deep into the abdomen, and the blood keeps coming and coming, the boy gurgling but Konstin cannot look at him, cannot bear to see his face, to see how ashen he must be, that pallor of death creeping over him, his eyes hollow staring at ghosts that nobody else can see. And all his mind is a litany of_ can’t let him die can’t let him die can’t let him die can’t let him _but the boy is dying, dying because there’s too much bleeding and if Konstin shifts his hands, tries to pull the uniform open to try to plug the bullet hole (damn the risk of infection, infection can be looked after later but if Konstin doesn’t plug the hole there won’t_ be _a later and dammit dammit where is all this blood coming from?) if he shifts his hands even a fraction more blood simply comes pouring out._

 _Beneath him the boy gasps, gasps and shifts, the gasps of the dying, with long moments of silence stretching between them so that all Konstin can hear is the distant crash of shells, cracks of pistols, until the boy takes another rattling gasp. He counts the seconds between breaths, leaning down with all his weight. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds. Fort—a gasp. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. Sixty. A gasp and Konstin is pulling open his uniform, pulling it open, the buttons popping off, and pulling the shirt open stiff with blood and the undershirt is black with blood, drenched and how long has it been since the boy has taken a breath? Seventy seconds? He’s lost count, nothing but stillness beneath him and the undershirt opens beneath his knife, blood welling out of the bullet hole in the centre of the boy’s stomach and faintly Konstin hears a weak huff of air and his fingers are fumbling at the boy’s throat, leaving streaks of blood behind but he can feel nothing, no throb of a pulse, no faint beat beneath his fingers nothing, and the boy takes another gurgling breath, Konstin’s knuckles rubbing his chest, digging into his breastbone, willing him to breathe, just to breathe_ , just breathe.

_But the boy does not draw a breath. He just lies there, utterly still, and when Konstin, at last, lays the palm of his hand flat on the boy’s chest he can feel nothing, no fluttering of the heart within, and tears sting his eyes as he leans back, every fibre of him numb and aching._

_And as he leans back, he catches sight of the boy’s face. He looks young, too young to even be a soldier, a trail of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. With stiff fingers Konstin wipes it away, and reaches to close his eyes._

_And stops._

_The eyes. Half-open blue eyes staring at the sky. The same shade of blue as Konstin’s own mother._

_The same shade of blue as Émile._

(No.)

 _And the same blond hair, muddy now_ (No, no, no) _. The same soft chin, and delicate fingers_ (No not him. Not him. He’s supposed to be home. Supposed to be safe. Mamma said he’s become an orderly not—not— _and it’s so hard to breathe, so hard, his chest tightening, lungs burning), and Konstin’s fingers are stiff no more, are shaking, shaking as he brushes the mud from that hair, as he closes those eyes, and tears blur his vision, trickle wet down his cheeks._

 _Distantly, he hears someone call his name. “Konstin, Konstin, you’re all right, Konstin, you’re all right,” the voice hoarse and oh so dear to him, pulling him away from his little brother dead on the ground, and he opens his eyes_ (he thought his eyes were already open?)

He opens his eyes and blinks to clear them, blinks to see anything through the darkness, tears damp on his cheeks. Where is he? He cannot tell but it comes to him that he is lying down, lying down in—in a bed?

He turns his head, pain jarring through him, and his eyes meet a pair of brown eyes, looking at him creased with worry.

Brown eyes. Antoine? What? Where is Émile? Émile—

Antoine smiles at him, his face pale, and he opens his mouth to speak but Konstin cannot hear the words, not through the echoing shellfire in his ears. And in the next moment, the darkness overwhelms him again, visions of blood and mud-stained blond hair following him.

* * *

 

“…at least they’re with Marguerite, that they have someone they know.” But Sorelli’s face is pale, and even to Christine’s ears the words are cold comfort.

Silence falls again, Sorelli studiously looking away with tears glistening in her dark eyes, and Christine wraps her fingers tighter around her cup of tea, as if the warmth of it can ease the aching inside of her chest.

It was Raoul who made the tea for them, a pot of it before he sequestered himself away with Philippe. Christine has not seen them in two hours, both of them in conference over what’s happened. She suspects they are drinking cognac and smoking cigars, and trying to decide how best to gather more information other than by studying whatever Marguerite may have written in her letter.

The letter has not arrived yet. Christine keeps expecting it by the next post, though there’s already been two postal deliveries today and neither of them had the letter in it. She is not certain she wants to read it, not certain she _wants_ to know how badly Konstin is injured. Without the letter, she can pretend that it is not all that serious, that all it means is that he will be invalided home to recover and she will have the comfort of knowing, for a time, that he is safe, wholly safe away from the fighting.

But even as she tries to delude herself, that little word _grave_ echoes in her mind again and shatters every one of the lies she tries to tell herself. And to even think about having the confirmation of it in her hand, the description of what has happened to him—

 _He will be all right, Mamma,_ Émile whispered to her so long ago, _he will be all right,_ and even now the words echo in her brain, and in spite of everything, in spite of what has happened, she is grateful that he, too, is not at the Front. If he had been in the same unit as Konstin—

She shudders inwardly, and sips her tea, which is still warm thanks to the blue and green cosy around it. She lets her eyes linger on the cosy, as if it can insulate her against the coming of any more news just as it insulates the tea from the cold, and it is one, she remembers, that Guillaume brought back after visiting England. She has the matching one at home.

Even with Konstin and Antoine wounded (and Christine’s stomach churns), Guillaume is safe thanks to his furlough, and for something to say, something other than speculation about the extent of wounds, she asks, “When is Guillaume due home?”

Sorelli sighs, and fingers the blue bauble on top of the cosy. “By first train in the morning. I wish,” her voice cracks, and she swallows, and Christine reaches over and lays her hand on top of Sorelli’s own, and Sorelli’s lips twitch but the smile is sad, “I wish he did not have to come home to news like this.”

* * *

 

He has never considered himself squeamish. It would be a decidedly improper thing in an officer, to be squeamish, though the sights of blood and wounds have never made him feel weak. But in spite of his great ability to stomach such things, Antoine cannot bear to watch as the nurses change Konstin’s dressings. He closes his eyes, and tightens his fingers in the linen sheets covering him, (he never expected there would be linen sheets in the hospital. Perhaps it is because of his rank) and tries to focus on his breathing to tune out the instructions of _carbolic solution, iodide powder, clear that drain, have you checked those stitches?, more gauze,_ and all the time Konstin whimpering, his whimpers punctuating their words.

He has been more restless in these last few hours than he was before, whimpering and moaning, and shifting in the bed, though he never wakes, not properly, sometimes his eyes fluttering open to rove the room before closing again. Is it dreams that are making him whimper so? Or is it the pain, the pain making itself felt even through the morphine?

Morphine. There is something about, something about Konstin and morphine, but what it is is just outside of Antoine’s reach, and try as he may he cannot grasp it.

Oh, he is so tired, every fibre of him too heavy to move. It would be easy to sleep, so easy to just drift off. But he cannot sleep now, not when Konstin’s whimpers keep breaking into his thoughts, reminding him of the pain he is in. If he could—if he could he would reach across the gap between their beds and take his hand and squeeze it so that he would know he is safe, but if he did that then the nurses would see, those nurses who are probing Konstin and cleaning his stitches with that solution that stings, that Guillaume complained over after he broke his leg, and if the nurses saw they would think it strange, might get suspicious, and then they would not be safe at all.

Antoine’s arm is too heavy to try to stretch across that distance anyway.

He clenches his fingers tighter, as if the sheets were Konstin’s hand, and tries to tune out the whimpers. It is doing Konstin a disservice to tune out his pain, to not acknowledge it, but Antoine is so tired, and so helpless to do anything about it, and he cannot bear to hear another moan from those lips. There were so many of them earlier, before he woke and looked at Antoine with those eyes that hardly seemed to know where he was, hardly seemed to know who Antoine was.

It was a nightmare then, it must have been. He has had so many nightmares lately. He has confided them in Antoine when they’ve been behind the lines together. So many nightmares playing tricks on his mind, all thanks to this _damn_ war.

The tears are hot on his cheeks, and he raises his hand to roughly wipe them away. “Are you in any pain, Commandant?” The nurse’s voice is soft, concerned, and he opens his eyes to find her looking at him with concern, the face he has seen so many times now, threads of auburn hair poking out from under her hat. What was it she asked? Pain? Is he in any pain?

A small bit, twinging under his ribs if he moves, but not true pain, not pain that she can do anything for, not when Konstin needs all the help he can get.

He shakes his head, and out of the side of his eye sees another nurse sleeping a needle into the crook of Konstin’s elbow and injecting a hypodermic of—maybe of morphine. And almost immediately the creases smooth from Konstin’s face, and he sighs.

Antoine swallows and whispers, “No. No pain”, and tries not to think that Konstin’s face is greyer than it was before.

* * *

 

Hardly have the last of the convalescents been sent to the train when the first ambulances start rolling in, and Marguerite and Minette are tasked with taking the wounded out of them and dividing them into sections. The ones who need immediate surgery, and the ones who need fluids and heat before surgery, go to the right wing of the château. The ones able to walk she sends to an outbuilding, where Sophie and another nurse, Angélique, are deciding who can go to the train, and who needs more treatment. And those who do not need surgery but are stretcher-cases nonetheless she sends to the left wing of the chateau, ready to be divided into rooms and wards.

Many of those have already had their amputations carried out, either at the lines or in the dressing stations. And many more of them have been gassed.

It is not the living wounded who trouble Marguerite, but the dead. The living she can still do something for, but the dead all she can do is have them carried to the stables, where the curé is blessing each corpse though it is too late to give any of them Unction. And as she climbs into another ambulance, and finds one man gasping for breath thanks to the shrapnel in his lungs (she sends him straight for surgery, waiting any longer could kill him) and two more already dead (one with shrapnel in his throat, the other with several bullets in his chest and belly) she cannot help but wonder if their ghosts have been left behind on the battlefield, forever trapped in the fog.

The very thought makes her shudder, and her fingers tremble as she checks the dressings on another soldier’s stump of a leg.

(The blood is soaking through the bandage. He needs fluids and more surgery.)

For hours she works like that, feeling pulses and staunching bleeding and giving instructions. Two men die beneath her hands, one as she is rubbing his chest willing him to breathe, her fingers still able to feel the faint pulse that flickered beneath her fingers a moment before disappearing. The other clings to her, his fingers tangled in the sleeve of her blood-stained uniform, blood bubbling out of a wound in his chest that the dressings have slipped off, his lips forming the words of the Salve Regina even as the light dimmed from his eyes.

_..Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevæ,_

_Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes..._

She finished the prayer for him, gently making the sign of the cross on his forehead, and when his fingers slackened she set his hand down next to him, and closed his eyes, and wiped away the tears that trickled down her cheeks.

She cannot think. If she lets herself think she might scream. There is only the work, only the endless work of stopping the bleeding and cleaning the mud away.

It is Amélie who relieves her, after grabbing a cup of coffee on her run from the operating theatre.

“Five minutes,” she gasps, “and then Matron wants you…on the resuscitation ward.”

Marguerite nods, already climbing into another ambulance. There are line of ambulances still coming, and the oil lamp (When did it get dark enough that she needs an oil lamp?) that an orderly, Pierre, passes into the ambulance is the only light that she has to see by.

 “All right.”


	14. After the Push

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for reference to surgery, blood, wounds, and discussion of death.

It is easier to not think of them as men. Easier to imagine them as wax models laid out, opened beneath the knife. It does not matter what happens to a wax model, however lifelike. The model cannot feel it. The model cannot whimper and cling to her sleeve. The model has no cognizance of anything, not even of itself.

The model does not have a pulse. And that is where any denial ends.

It is a definite pulse fluttering beneath her fingers. A weak pulse, a sometimes-thready pulse that makes her press deeper to find it, but a pulse nonetheless. A hundred and twenty, hundred and thirty beats a minute, and Marguerite keeps her eyes focused on the watch in her hand, does not look at his face. _Too fast, much too fast_. The morphine should have suppressed it, or the gas. But it is still fluttering rapidly. They gave him blood, did they not? Sophie was doing the agglutination tests, and there should have been several pints in storage with no reaction. No time to tap an orderly and take it fresh. He must have gotten blood.

His pulse was only eighty when they started. He definitely got blood.

“Pulse?” Carrière’s voice is sharp, and she wonders what it is he sees, poking through the man’s intestines, to put that edge into his voice.

“One two five.” It rolls off her tongue without thought.

“Respirations?”

“Thirty-two a minute.” _Too fast, too high._

Carrière curses under his voice. “Too much bleeding. More suction.” A beat, and then Marguerite hears the gurgling suck that follows his words, and swallows. Still too much bleeding, and at the thought she feels his pulse falter, a flicker of nothingness before it starts again, threadier than before.

“Pulse faltering.” And she pulls her eyes away from the watch to check the patient’s face, finds his skin faintly grey. At her nod, the orderly holding the gas mask in place lifts it slightly, enough that she can see the faint blue tinge to the patient’s lips. “Cyanosis setting in.”

And now Carrière curses aloud. “Switch to oxygen, pure oxygen!” It is not Marguerite’s duty to deal with the bottles, and out of the side of her eye she sees hands making the exchange, pulling out the gas bottle and replacing it with one of oxygen.

His pulse is still too weak, his breaths still too fast. But a very slight bit of colour does return to his cheeks, and Marguerite says, “Colour improving. Pulse and respirations still rapid.”

Carrière does not acknowledge, and she glances up at his face, sees the frown between his eyes, the blood that reaches up above his elbows, and wishes she had not looked at him at all.

And part of her wonders, a small hidden part of her wonders, what they are even fighting for with this man. The bullet tore through his abdomen and shattered his spine on the way out. She has seen enough of such wounds to know that he is not going to last. Maybe a few hours, a day, or two, with morphine pumping through his veins, not knowing where he is, and then he will slip away. He is doomed whatever they do now.

She regards his face again, his pallid face with its soft features, the rounded nose, and wonders if he has a sister in a province somewhere who does not know that he is lying here dying, and may not know until he is already gone. A wife? A sweetheart? A little daughter who only wants Papa to come home?

(Marguerite doubts if he has a daughter. He looks far too young.)

Tears prickle her eyes, her throat tightening, and she glances away from his face, back to the watch. It is only the watch that matters.

“Pulse?”

“One three zero.”

* * *

 

Though nobody comes near them, Antoine can hear the rush outside. The grinding of wheels on gravel, shouted voices, flurry of feet running down the hall, rattling hums of engines. Each time he drifts awake he can hear them, all through the night.

A push. There must have been a push.

He cannot think on any push, his eyes constantly rolling towards Konstin in the other bed, closer to the door. It is the moving of Konstin more than the moving outside which troubles Antoine even in his hazy state. Konstin keeps shifting in the bed, Antoine knows it by the soft rustle of his sheets, the way they stir. He was quiet, in the early part of the night, Antoine thinks but does not quite remember, but as dawn comes the moving starts, is there each time Antoine wakes but he is so tired, too tired to think about it, and as the darkness pulls him back down beneath its still waters, the only thought that lingers in his mind is, _the morphine must not be working._

* * *

 

“Many more left out there?” Carrière asks, not looking up from the leg that he is working on. It was a bad break, the shin bone piercing right through the skin, and Marguerite does not know why they did not amputate it at the dressing station. Normally they would have with a break like that, and spare Carrière the trouble of doing it now.

They must have overlooked it somehow, in the middle of the push.

“The last one is on his way in.” Lefevre’s voice comes from near the door, where he is scrubbing the blood off his arms from the last patient he dealt with. Relief flickers deep in Marguerite’s stomach, but she does not loosen her grip on the watch, her fingers still pressed into the carotid of the man Carrière is working on. She cannot relax now, not so close to the end. Rest will come soon enough.

“Good.” The relief lingers beneath the surface of Carrière’s voice. “Pulse?”

Marguerite is expecting him to ask at any moment, and so the question does not catch her off guard. “Eighty-one. Strong.”

“Good. Bone saw.”

* * *

 

The telegram comes early in the morning, before breakfast. And though Christine already knows what to expect, already knows that Konstin is wounded, there is something about seeing it in those formal words that makes it crystallise, makes it feel all the more real.

“…regret to inform you…Commandant Erik Konstantin Daaé…confirmed wounded in action…”

She could not read it, could only hold it with trembling hands, looking at his name printed there and those words, _wounded in action._ It should not make any difference to see the words like it. The words do not make him less or more wounded, but the way it hits it feels like she’s been winded and she sucks in a breath, the world tilting.

Raoul’s arms wrap warm around her waist, steady her so that she does not feel as if she is falling, and he eases her down to the couch, still holding her tight. She does not cry, does not scream though she feels the scream building and twisting inside of her, begging to be let out, but she can’t scream, she can’t. If she does it will not be dignified, will bring dishonour on Konstin, and she swallows the aching in her throat, clenches her hands into fists and crumples the telegram.

_Just breathe, Christine. Just breathe._

Her own voice, whispering to her from the depths of her mind, and Raoul’s voice gentle in her ear. _Just breathe, darling, just breathe. It’s all right. He’ll be all right._ And she gasps a breath, gasps _,_ each gasp easing the constriction of her chest, and still the tears do not come though they prickle her eyes, the scream strangling itself in her throat.

She leans back into Raoul, his fingers smoothing her hair, and sighs, her heart still pounding but it is easier to breathe now. Easier to breathe, and she lets the crumpled telegram fall to the floor. It cannot tell her anything that she does not already know. And it cannot tell her anything that she _wants_ to know. And so it does not matter. It is simply making things official, those words written on that paper.

Just making things official.

Raoul curls his hand around hers, and settles his chin on her shoulder. He does not speak, but he does not need to, and she closes her eyes, and listens to the sound of his breathing, as if it will keep the world from spinning more out of control.

* * *

 

_The river ripples silver beneath the sun, little flashes of it, as if there are millions of pieces of jewellery floating on the water, drifting in the tiny waves. The thunder of hooves shatters the illusion of peace, and Antoine raises his eyes from the river to find Konstin galloping towards him along the waters’ edge, long hair flowing black in the wind, horse’s mane blowing back. His pale skin is tanned faintly golden by the sun, and Antoine’s heart catches in his throat to see that he has cast aside his shirt, the muscles of his stomach contracting as he leans forward, urging the horse on._

_He is like some hero of legend, be it Roman or Greek or even Persian. Like some young demi-god set down here, the sand getting kicked up beneath his horse’s hooves. Or a prince, escaped from his palace and his duties for a time to run free._

_As he gets closer, he slows the horse down, from a gallop to a canter, and just as he draws level with Antoine he pulls up tight, the reins twisting around his hand, knuckles white. The horse’s nostrils flare as Konstin grins down at Antoine, his eyes sparkling, and he disentangles his hand from the reins, pats the horse on his neck and swings his leg over the saddle. He is like some sort of American cowboy from one of those slim paperback novels, all dashing and rakish as he slides down off the horse, and Antoine’s heart flutters._

_“Did you miss me?” Konstin asks, one eyebrow arched, and Antoine feigns unconcern._

_“You were hardly gone long enough for the heart to grow fond.” But his lips twitch, and it is enough that Konstin closes the short space between them, his hair falling down into his eyes, and wraps his arms around Antoine’s waist, drawing him close._

_“Perhaps,” he murmurs, his voice low, “the heart will grow fond now.” And Antoine leans into him, closes his eyes, and a moment later feels the press of Konstin’s lips against his._

_“Oh yes.” Antoine murmurs into his mouth, still able to detect the faint taste of strawberry on his lips from their lunch, “very fond indeed.”_

* * *

 

The stables are still, silent but for Marguerite’s own breathing. Her footsteps echo dully as she walks, every fibre of her too heavy, begging for sleep, but she could not in all good conscience sleep, not yet. Not without seeing the dead.

There are so many dead, and if she were more awake it might strike at her heart. But she was there when many of these men came in, she searched for pulses in their throats and in their wrists and listened for breath and found only silence, and she does not have it in her to be truly surprised at how many of them there are. Lines and lines of bodies laid out in the corridor, several lying stiff and cold in each stall, and there are so many stalls.

Later the funerals will start. Graves barely opened with bodies placed inside of them and covered over again, all names recorded, etched into wooden crosses to stand and mark the spot where each body lies. And the train will come, and take more of them away to bury them somewhere else. New graveyards sprouting like flowers in the springtime.

Like the poppies that will cover them all soon enough. They seem to blanket every grave in France now, their colour so rich thanks to the rivers of blood soaking the soil.

Marguerite cannot feel anything, can only stand hollow and numb looking at the bodies laid out. Some of them are only boys, cannot be of legal age. They must have lied about how old they were so they could join up, to serve the glory of France.

But there is no glory in this.

Some of these men died under her hands. Two of them, somewhere in the rows, she felt it as their lives flickered out, their pulses fading under her fingertips even as Carrière tried to coax them to breathe, and forced adrenaline into their collapsing veins. One of them it was a chest wound, and with the man’s chest already opened Carrière tried to massage his heart back into beating in one last-ditch effort. All for nothing. All for this.

Are there women somewhere, women like her, waiting in some village or town somewhere, or even in Paris, aching for news and hoping for a letter to arrive? Women who do not know that their love is already lying dead, and all their hopes already in vain as they go about their normal day, unaware of the telegram that will soon arrive with their name on it? To have lived a day or two unknowing, unaware, only filled with silent hope. What kind of torment must that be when the news does come?

None of these men, when they awoke yesterday, knew that they would be lying stretched here today. Perhaps they thought it would be someone else. It always had been before.

But there is just nothing now for them. Nothing.

A tear trickles hot down Marguerite’s cheek, but she cannot even raise her hand to wipe it away.

* * *

 

Christine aches for Nadir. If he were here, he would sit her down, and take her hand, and tell her all of the reasons that she need not worry. And coming from him, with his gentle eyes and his warm, soft hand, she would be able to believe it. He was always so good at setting her fears to rest, about Konstin, and every little thing that ever worried her about him, every childhood illness, every nightmare, every separation, and when he decided to set off for Persia with Antoine at his side, and about Raoul, too, when the time came that he wished to start courting her again, and later when he proposed marriage, _if you feel you are ready_. Nadir would keep his voice low, and assure her that everything would be all right. And coming from him such words did not seem so strange.

But Nadir has been gone for thirteen years. Thirteen long years, and sometimes it seems like only yesterday when he sat in his chair, Konstin all of two years old nestled asleep in his lap, and told her that perhaps it was time she returned to the Garnier. He could see that she missed it, missed standing on the stage and singing, missed becoming wholly someone else for a few hours. Fear clawed inside of her at his suggestion. It was so long since she had sung for a crowd. And how could she do it without Erik? Without him sitting up in his box smiling to himself in that soft way he had in those last months, the smile he only wore when he thought she could not see him. And he would file away all of her missteps, every note that she did not sing just perfectly, to tell her about later in that critical way she hated, but afterwards would have given anything to hear, just once more. Just to hear his voice.

And Nadir pushed her, pushed her into returning. And she never regretted it.

Dear old Nadir. When he died (peacefully, in his sleep, and she remembers half-wondering if Erik had been with him at the end, or if he had seen the Rookheeya he always spoke of with tender sadness, or his poor lost boy Reza), when he died it devastated Konstin. He had never lost someone close to him before, and for days he was like some sort of automaton, wandering like a ghost through the house until she found him one night by the fire, curled up weeping, and she took him in her arms and held him, just held him, as he cried himself out, her own tears leaking into his hair.

It is a knock on the door that wakes her from the memory, and she jolts, finds Raoul already disentangling his arms from around her. She misses the warmth of them immediately. “I’ll get it,” he murmurs. “It’s probably only Guillaume come to say hello.” Christine nods, pulling herself back together from her scattered thoughts and smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt. It would not do to look anything less than composed.

The smell of fresh bread permeates the room. She had not noticed before, so wrapped up was she in her own head. It must be Anja, in the kitchen. She always takes to baking when things…when things are difficult. In those early days after the war broke out, she must have baked enough to feed most of the poor in Paris.

Christine ought to remind her to go easy with the flour…

Émile is probably still hiding up with his books. Konstin was home on leave last year just before his birthday. And the day before he had to return to the Front, two days before Émile’s birthday, he gave him several old books that had once been Erik’s, ones Erik had put together himself on herbs and medicine. Christine’s heart lurched to see that handwriting when she was not expecting it, and tears bubbled up inside of her but she held them in. And there _were_ tears in Émile’s eyes as he hugged Konstin and whispered, “Thank you, brother _._ ”

It is likely those books that he is looking at now.

(Did some part of Konstin know? When he decided to give those books away? When he pressed Erik’s pocket watch back into Christine’s hand? Or was it all merely chance? Christine’s heart twists and she pushes the thoughts away.)

She hears voices in the hall, and though she does not pick out the words she does catch the cadence of Raoul speaking. The other voice is a man’s, too. One that she recognises, but she is not certain why, or from where.

Then in the next moment she does not need to be certain. Raoul walks through the doorway, and a tall young man follows him in uniform, with his hat in his hand, red hair neatly combed back.

Capitaine De Courcy. She has not thought of him since the night of the gala, what feels like a century ago, and he danced with Anja all night.

What brings him, of all people? Is it something to do with Anja?

Christine stands, and Raoul comes to stand beside her, the Capitaine looking pale and tired. And she remembers, looking at him, that it is not so very long since he, too, was gravely wounded.

“Good afternoon, Madame De Chagny,” he says, his voice soft, and Christine nods.

“Good afternoon, Capitaine.” She gestures for him to sit, but he shakes his head.

“I am afraid I cannot stay long, Madame. I only stopped in because—because I heard about what happened to your son. And I want to say I—” he swallows, “I hope he will be well.”

Not _I hope it is not too serious._ Or, _word is that they’re planning on transferring him back here soon._ Nothing that could give her any scrap of hope only, _I hope he will be well._

And it is those words more than anything that make tears sting her eyes.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, and feels Raoul wrap his hand tightly around hers. “I hope so too.”

“I will keep him in my thoughts. He has always—always been very courteous to me, and kind, any time that we have crossed paths.” For a moment, he seems as if he wants to say something more about Konstin, but he shakes his head almost imperceptibly, before saying, a slightly high note in his voice, “You will give my regards to your daughter?”

And in spite of everything, in spite of the tears in her eyes, and the nausea twisting in her stomach, Christine’s lips twitch slightly, as if they would smile. “Of course.”

* * *

 

Golden eyes shine through the darkness, regard him clinically, almost coldly. Cool fingers softly brush his cheek, find their way to his throat and press in, not painful but firm, and he swallows beneath that touch. The eyes do not frown, but there is a flicker of…of something he cannot place in them, some unnamed sentiment. The fingers leave his neck, the press of them faint over his collarbone before they come to rest on his shoulder, the pressure gentle.

“…condition very serious, my son…”

 _My son._ “Papa,” Konstin breathes, his voice faint. “Papa, I—” What can he say? _I don’t want you to leave. Don’t let me be alone. Every time I think—you disappear and I just want you to stay._ His lips struggle to form the words, too numb, and he tries to raise his hand, tries to take the black sleeve that he can dimly see, but his fingers only twitch, too stiff to obey him.

The eyes blink, and faintly he feels another hand rest on top of his. “Now do not try to say a word. You need to save your strength, my boy. It is a long fight…”

Words fade away, the eyes lost to darkness, but though he cannot see, cannot hear, he knows he is not alone.

* * *

 

Part of Marguerite wants to head straight to bed, and sleep as long as Matron will permit her. But she knows that she will not be able to sleep unless she looks on Antoine and Konstin first. And Dupuis too.

It is Dupuis that she goes to first, and she finds him sleeping peacefully. He does not stir as she checks his pulse. It is not particularly fast (eighty-seven beats per minute) but it is a little weaker than she would like, and she consults his chart as she chews the inside of her lip. It has been at that level all day, and was slightly higher during the night whenever someone had time to take it, and she finds herself troubled by it. She reads that he has had more fluids, and stimulants, and it is that fact more than anything that niggles at the back of her mind.

If he has had everything already (several times, in fact), and it has not made a difference, then what could be wrong?

Probably she is foolish to be worrying. She is merely hyper-aware of him, that is all. He had surgery for internal bleeding. And with the strain of his first surgery, the amputation and work on his spine, his pulse is bound to be a little weak. He has been through a lot. It does not necessarily mean that there is something wrong. If it were anyone else would it trouble her so?

She takes a breath to soothe the pounding of her heart, and sets his chart back down. If his pulse has not settled tonight, then she will worry. There is no use in worrying now when it might very well be normal.

It is now, only now that the ambulances have stopped coming in so fast and the emergency surgeries from the push have finished, that she realises how very much her legs are aching. They weigh like lead, and the very thought of walking all the way back to the room she shares with Amélie and Minette is exhausting.

No harm in sitting with Dupuis for a few minutes. The three other wounded men in the room are resting peacefully too, and she suspects it is not long since they all got doses of morphine.

She settles into the chair beside the bed, the one that she left here what feels like weeks ago but was only yesterday morning, before Amélie called her out to tell her about the coming ambulances, and having to move the convalescents. So much has happened since, so very much.

Gently she reaches out, and curls her fingers around Dupuis’. His eyelids flutter for a moment, only slightly, but do not open, and she rubs slow circles into the back of his hand with her thumb. That has helped to settle him before.

His hand is only slightly colder than it should be, and in spite of his weak pulse, a small flame of relief flickers in her heart. If his hand has warmed a bit, then he cannot be too badly off.

Carefully, infinitely carefully so as not to wake him, she raises his hand and presses it, softly, to her lips. It is not a kiss, not quite, but she holds his hand there, to her mouth, and sighs, and part of her, a very, very tiny part of her, buried deep inside, hopes that he knows.

* * *

 

It was shortly after Capitaine De Courcy left when the letter arrived from Marguerite, bearing the news of what happened to Konstin. Though hours have passed, hours in which Raoul went for a long walk after hearing the contents of the letter, and Anja has gone to her shift at the hospital, Christine is unable to set it down. Her eyes keep tracing the words, trying to make sense of them even though she knows what they mean. She knows what they mean individually, what they are supposed to mean when put together, but about Konstin? How could they ever begin to make sense when they are about Konstin?

Her mind picks out phrases, turns them over.

_“…same ambulance as Antoine…”_

_“…a Capitaine Dupuis who was there came in the day before Konstin…said that there was a shell and he lost sight of him in the fog…”_

_“…may have been out there all night…explain why it took so long for him to come in…”_

_“…both legs, some broken ribs, shrapnel wounds to his chest that are not very deep and some to his stomach, concussion, his left arm is badly cut…shrapnel in his eye…”_

_“…doses of morphine…”_

_“…the curé, Abbé Dumas, blessed him…”_

_“…the surgery went well…still very weak…lost a lot of blood but had two transfusions, one before surgery and one after…in the same room as Antoine…”_

_“…when they are more awake I want to ask them how they ended up travelling together, though Konstin may not remember, and Antoine’s memory may be hazy…”_

And at the back of her mind Christine thinks, _at least they are together_ , but it is the other words that worry her, that chill her blood and make it feel as if there are fingers wrapping tight around her heart. His legs, his eye, his chest. Will he be able to walk? Will he be able to _see_?

The curé blessed him. Was it just a blessing or was it—was it something more?

(Don’t let it have been anything more.)

But his ribs and his chest and his stomach. So much damage done to him. Her poor boy. He’s been through so much, suffered so much. He must be in so much pain, though surely the morphine is keeping him at least a little bit comfortable. The thought of Konstin and morphine makes her feel nauseous. It was the morphine that killed Erik, the morphine that weakened his heart, she knows that, she _knows_ it. And if something like that were to happen to Konstin, if he were to have that much of his father in him…

(If she closes her eyes she can still see the glint of the needle, and the way Erik held it as he eased it into his arm, the droplet of blood that it left behind. She used to stroke his needletracks as he slept, and wish there was some way that he did not need it.)

She doesn’t think she could bear it. Sometimes she can still hear Erik gasping for breath, see the white of his knuckles as he fought the pain in his chest, and if that happened to Konstin—If he had to struggle for air thanks to that _damn_ drug—

He might be struggling for air anyway. Marguerite said the shrapnel in his chest was not deep, but when it was in his chest at all—

The letter slips from her fingers and she does not try to pick it up, cannot bear to see what is written there a moment longer. What was it that she was hoping for when she opened the letter? Some assurance that he would be all right? That though his injuries are serious they are not actually as grave as Marguerite made it sound in her telegram?

She does not know what she was expecting. But it was not for words like _went well_ to be followed closely by _still very weak_ or _lost a lot of blood._ Or for him to have _so many_ wounds. She thought he had been shot. That was her first assumption when she heard he was wounded and had calmed down enough to think of such things. Surely, she thought, he must have been shot. But for him to have been sliced open in so many ways, his body torn and blood spilling out from so many different wounds —

It is unbearable to think about. Unbearable to consider. Unbearable to imagine. What must he be thinking? Or is he able to think with all of that morphine they’ve shot into him? Does he even know how ill he is or have they spared him that fact?

She hopes that he does not know, hopes that he is not frightened. If he is frightened she does not know how she could ever take it.

Footsteps draw her back, muffled footsteps, and hardly has she looked up from the letter lying on the floor than Raoul has sat down beside her on the couch, and wrapped his arms around her. He is damp, and smells like rain, and his lips are cold as he presses them to her forehead. “I’m sorry for leaving you at such a time but I just—I couldn’t—”

And she understands, she does, because Konstin has always been his son too, in a way. He was there the day he was born, has loved him and cared for him and worried for him ever since

His heart is aching too, now.

(What would she ever do without him?)

“I understand,” she murmurs, leaning into him, and his thumb is gentle as it wipes away the tears that have trickled from her eyes.

He nuzzles into her hair, and his voice is soft as he says, “I met Philippe when—when I was out. He said that Guillaume arrived shortly after dawn, and went straight up to bed. Sorelli told him what—what had happened when he woke afterwards.”

“How did he take it?” Christine knows, even as she asks, that Guillaume will not have taken it well. To arrive home on leave, only to discover his twin brother and cousin are both lying badly wounded? How could he ever take that well?

“He went straight for the bottle of cognac. But Philippe says he has calmed down a good bit now. Marguerite wrote them about Konstin too, and how bad—how bad he is. But not in quite as much detail.” He swallows. “They send their regards.”

And Christine does not know what to say to that. All she can think of is Konstin, lying so ill and so far away from her. And Antoine, who is with him and wounded too though Marguerite went to great pains to specify that the bullet did not damage any organs, though that does not mean he is out of danger. And for a long time, she and Raoul sit in silence, simply holding each other, each lost in their own thoughts.

* * *

 

Marguerite only meant to sit with Dupuis for a few minutes, but she ends up sitting there for almost an hour. He sleeps the whole time, only shifting very slightly now and then, as if to get more comfortable. She does not speak, but there is nothing that she wishes to say, and when, at last, she sets his hand down, she strokes the hair back from his face. It would not do for him to wake, and have it falling into his eyes.

She slips from the room quietly, her heart full of thoughts of him, and easier than it has been in days. It is good to see him resting so easily, free from pain and the worry that she so often sees in his eyes. And if his pulse is still weak, likely it will have improved by tomorrow. There is no need to worry.

She will pay a quick visit on Antoine and Konstin, just to be certain that they are resting easily too, and then she will go to bed. It will be so nice to lie down, and just sleep.

She does not get as far as checking on Antoine, only sees that he is asleep. It is Konstin’s bed that is the first she meets when she comes through the door, and there is nothing unusual in that, but what is unusual is the flush of colour across his cheekbones, a faint red that was not there yesterday. He groans and turns his head away as she presses her wrist to his forehead, and the heat burning through his skin pulls her to full wakefulness in a heartbeat.

Heat means fever. Fever—

Bile burns her throat, and she swallows it down, hands pulling back the sheets covering him. Already the questions are flickering in her mind, the questions she has asked so many times before of others. Where is more likely to be infected? His leg which is a mess, or his abdomen?

Abdomen. There is no question of that.

Her fingers are loosening the bandages in a flash, tugging them open, and with trembling hands she eases the dressings back, fights to tune out the whimpers coming from his throat.

The surgical wound is inflamed, angry streaks of red around the stitches despite the two rubber tubes in place as drains. Fluid weeps from between the stitches, and her head spins.

Weeping fluid. Inflammation. Fever. No. _Oh, no._

Quickly she replaces the dressings, re-does his bandages. She needs to tell Matron, and Lefevre. Lefevre needs to see him _now_.

“I’m sorry, Konstin,” she whispers, pulling the sheets roughly back up over him, and he groans again, his lips twisting as he gasps. “I’m sorry”

And her last thought, as she runs down the hall to find Matron is, _thank God Antoine is asleep._

* * *

 

It is voices that pull Antoine back to wakefulness, unfamiliar voices. He is too tired and groggy to make out most of the words, but he catches snatches of them, words he could never hope to understand like _tachycardia_ and _tachypnea_. It is the other words, like _rigidity_ and _inflammation_ and _abdominal tenderness_ , that make him wonder _._ Moans accompany that last phrase, _abdominal tenderness,_ pained moans that make Antoine’s throat tighten.

Who is it that they are talking about? Who is moaning?

Not—Not _Konstin._ It must be somebody else. Surely they can’t be talking about Konstin.

Antoine’s eyes flicker open, and it takes him a moment to adjust to the light, his vision blurred. It is Marguerite’s face that he sees first, Marguerite pale and drawn, standing at Konstin’s head, and frowning. A flush of red stands out on Konstin’s cheek, stark against the pallid grey of his skin, and then Antoine sees another nurse beside Marguerite, one who is older, who looks as if she is in charge. And beside her, beside her is a tall man, with flecks of grey through his dark hair, and he is feeling Konstin’s stomach, the dressings pulled back.

Antoine’s heart clenches tight as the man shakes his head, and through the rush of blood in his ears he hears, “…likely infected before he arrived…possibly some necrosis…need to open him up again…” and Antoine screws his eyes shut, because if he does not see them it is not real. If he does not see them it does not matter, is all a dream, cannot hurt him or Konstin or anyone. Just a dream. Only a dream. That’s all it can be. That’s all it is _allowed_ to be. And pain lances deep in his chest, telling him that it is real, it is, but he cannot believe it. Not about Konstin.

Antoine swallows, and flexes his fingers. If he goes back to sleep, he will wake to find everything well. And Konstin will be awake, and smile at him, and there will be no more talk of necrosis, no more talk of infection. All of that will be lies. There will only be him, and Konstin. Just him and Konstin. And all will be well.

If he just sleeps. If he just sleeps.


	15. Harrow and Haunted

As before, Matron insisted that Marguerite not follow Konstin into surgery. "Go to bed," she said, her eyes gentle but firm. "Get some rest. You've had a long day already." And Marguerite was too exhausted to protest, had too much worry clawing inside of her, so she nodded. There was not a hope that she could sleep with Konstin in surgery, and so she took up a seat beside Antoine, and tried not to think, tried to focus only on her brother, on the slight shiftings of his face in sleep. But her every thought went back to Konstin, back to that red flush across his cheeks from the fever, and Lefevre’s grave look as he palpated his stomach.

It was Antoine who woke her from her thoughts, when he groaned with the coming of wakefulness. And she tried to shush him, tried to keep him from turning his head and finding Konstin missing because she knew, she _knew_ it would upset him, would panic him, and she was right because the moment Antoine caught sight of the empty bed next to him she heard the breath catch in his throat, and felt it as he trembled, his fingers twitching between her own. And she hated doing it, hated it with every fibre of her being, but it was the only way to keep him calm, to keep him from hurting himself. So without a word, without a single word she took the bottle of morphine from her pocket, and the syringe and needle from the other, and measured out a dose.

The stomach-churning feeling of sliding the needle into her brother’s vein is one she knows she will never forget.

"He's in surgery," she whispered, fighting to keep her voice steady. "That's all, Antoine. He's just in surgery. He'll be all right, he'll be all right." And she leaned in and wrapped her arms around him until the trembling eased from his body, helped more by the morphine than her words, and his breathing evened back into that of sleep.

 _Better_ , she told herself, slipping the morphine back into her pocket, _that he not upset himself_ _in his condition_. And she held his hand tighter, and tried to pray, but the words were clumsy on her lips, the Latin muddled, and she sighed and closed her eyes.

It was Amélie who woke her, who stirred her from the doze she did not realise she was in with a gentle hand on her shoulder, and it took Marguerite a moment to see that Konstin was back from surgery, settled into his bed with the sheets pulled back up to his chin, his face paler (if possible) than it was before.

"It went well." Amélie's voice was soft, and groggy though she was all Marguerite could think was that well is such a relevant term, can mean so many different things, and as if he sensed what she was thinking Konstin whimpered, and shifted slightly, and she knew she could stay there no longer, knew she could not bear to see him so ill.

"I—I'll be with Capitaine Dupuis," she murmured, and stood, her legs stiff, fingers aching as she set Antoine's hand back down, his fingers still loose in her grip.

"You should get some sleep." And tired though she was, there was no way Marguerite could mistake the undercurrent of worry in Amélie's voice as she shook her head.

"I can't," she whispered, "I can't."

And that is how she came to be sitting back here, beside Dupuis though part of her mind whispers that he is Edouard, and there is a flush to his cheeks too, heat burning through his skin, and tears sting Marguerite's eyes, roll down her cheeks, so that she cannot see the flush of his cheeks, cannot see the pallor of his face, can see nothing only a blur of grey that she is too tired to blink away, the pain twisting in her heart that makes it so hard to breathe.

* * *

 

The longer Christine lies on the sofa the more her eyes stray to the photograph over the mantelpiece. It was taken when Émile was only a couple of months old, and he is nestled safe in Nadir's arms. Nadir is sitting in his armchair, a blanket draped around his shoulders. He was prone to getting chills in those days, and though Christine herself had not yet regained her full strength after the ordeal of Émile’s birth, she often found herself worried about Nadir, and he would assure her, even with his voice hoarse, that he was perfectly all right, and would pat her hand gently.

Darius is sitting in an armchair beside Nadir in the photo, Anja only a little girl sitting in his lap. And Darius, too, was growing old then, had slowed down a great deal from how he used to be. He had not wanted to be in the photograph, had felt too conscious of himself, but Raoul had insisted, Christine remembers, and told him that he was family too.

Anja was always very close to him. And even in his later years, after Christine's marriage to Raoul when he and Nadir came to live with them and they had maids to handle the cooking and cleaning, Darius would insist on cooking and Anja, when she had gotten old enough, would sit in the kitchen and watch him, and he would patiently explain to her everything he did, and when she tried to help she would make a mess, but he would only smile at her and if she were anyone else he would throw her out of the kitchen.

Dear old Darius.

Christine’s eyes wander away from him to the figure standing between the two armchairs, behind Nadir and Darius. Konstin, and pain briefly stabs in her heart to see him.  It was just before he went to Persia, off on his own adventure with Antoine, and in a new dress suit with his hair combed back he looks so tall and elegant. And so very young, she thinks now. Elegant, and handsome, but young. He was only nineteen years, younger even than she was when she married Erik, but he looked every inch the gentleman, and tears prickle her eyes now to think of her son as he was then, so young and full of hope for the future.

She blinks the tears away, and swallows. It would not do to cry now, not over such sweet memories.

When he is well enough, when he comes home, back to Paris where she can see him, she will remind him of those days, and though he will be tired, and still so weak with his wounds, he will smile. She can almost see it now, and the thought of it eases some of the pain in her heart.

He will be well. He will.

* * *

 

_Spray of blood, scarlet in the mist, hot on his face. It stands out dark on his hands, and he wipes them on his coat, fingers curling tight around his pistol. The wire drags against him, raking his skin through the fabric, stinging, piercing._

_A crash, the mud falling around him, world spinning, spinning, spinning._

_Bayonet plunging deep, and he twists, gurgling choking reaching his ears but he cannot look, must not look._

_The water is up to his knees, cold, soaking through his trousers so that his legs are numb. And through the roars of men, through the crash of shells, he hears the soft pffft of a bullet piercing flesh. The man above him, standing on the ladder looking over the wall of the trench, sways, falls, and it takes him an age to fall, his body heavy in Konstin's arms, and Konstin is pulling at his clothes, tugging them open, blood welling out of a small, dark hole just beneath his heart, and Konstin feels his hand pressing into it, as if his hand does not belong to him, belongs to someone else, and his eyes catch the face, catch brown eyes and auburn-tinged blond hair and he lurches, his heart faltering, Antoine's eyes staring at him, staring past him, and the gurgling comes from his throat, comes and doesn't stop, and he is falling from Konstin's arms, falling, and the ground is hard beneath Konstin's back, his chest aching, stomach burning, and golden eyes hover over him, fingers brushing his cheek as the darkness creeps in, flows over him, pulls him down, down, down._

* * *

 

Konstin's murmurs seep into Antoine'a dreams, punctuate his every thought. Some of them are beyond comprehension, mangled words of French and Farsi interspersed with Russian and Italian, the language shifting sometimes within a single word so that the thread of it is impossible to trace, and Antoine's thoughts are too woolly to try to piece the fragments together. What dreams must he be wandering down? What broken memories?

Too many of them. Far too many of them. And Antoine is helpless to do anything but lie there, his fingers aching for to close the gap between their beds and take Konstin's hand and promise him that he is not alone. But when he tries to move, tries to lean a little closer, the pull of his own wound is sharp through the haze of his thoughts, and he gasps, sinking back down to the bed.

He can watch. Only watch, and listen to the whimpers and the broken moans. And sometimes Konstin's murmurs rise to a terrible coherency, a coherency that makes Antoine's heart twist painfully.

"...must s-sing Papa's song, Mamma..."

"...promise me you'll be careful...promise...couldn't bear if..."

"...don't go...don't go..."

Tears trickle from the corners of Antoine's eyes, roll down the side of his face, and he swallows, trying not to listen to those words, trying not to hear that voice, that beloved, dear voice, so thick and hoarse. But the words filter through, deep into his efforts to think of other things, to think of holding Konstin in his arms and kissing his hair so that all he can he hear is a whimpered, "Papa, no, Papa, no," and his eyes flicker open again, as if he expects to see Erik, expects that vision in black from what feels like a lifetime ago, but he finds only Konstin, whimpering, his face tilted towards the door so that Antoine cannot see it, cannot see the lines of pain that must surely be etched in it.

Not pain no. Not pain. He can't be in pain. He is not _allowed_ to be pain. How can he be in pain with all of the morphine they've been giving him? It can't be pain it can't it just can't. The very _thought_ of him being in pain is a crime. He is not supposed to know pain.

It is the fever. The fever that is making him murmur like this, the fever that makes him whimper. It cannot be pain.

The fever.

There was something about necrosis, wasn't there? So long ago? Something about necrosis and a second surgery and when the world flickered into view and there was no Konstin it was as if he had died, as if he was simply gone, but the voice was soft whispering to him that he was in surgery, that he would be all right but how can he be all right if he has a fever?

What Antoine would not give to be somewhere else, anywhere else. To not have to see this. To not have to listen to him, to not have to know that he is suffering like this. To be simply…to be simply _unaware_ , oblivious, to be able to carry on and think _well Konstin must be all right_ and not know that this is happening, that he is lying here like this.

But even as Antoine wishes to be somewhere else, he knows he could not bear it, not now. Not knowing that Konstin is so very ill, not knowing the way his breaths whistle, the way he groans in between murmurs.

If he could just take his hand, could just lean in and lay his head down on the pillow too so that they could be cheek to cheek, and whisper in his ear every soft word, every gentle thing he could think of. Just to be close to him and not—not barely out of reach.

Just to hold him. Just to touch him. They seem such simple things, so simple, but Antoine’s heart aches with the very thought that he can't, that it is impossible, and that ache on top of all of the other aches and the writhing nausea in his stomach makes his throat tighten, and he lies there, just lies there, and tries to breathe.

* * *

 

INFECTION STOP SECOND SURGERY STOP WENT WELL STOP DOING ALL THEY CAN FINAL STOP

Raoul read the telegram before he gave it to her, and his face was carefully impassive as he passed it over, and Christine knew, she knew it could not be good news. Her heart pounded the words, _don’t let him be dead don’t let him have died,_ but she did not expect this, did not expect to see such an awful word _infection_. And though the telegram does not have any name, does not specify Konstin or Antoine, it does not need to, and as Christine's eyes meet Raoul's again, sees his own brimming tears threatening to spill, the telegram slips from her fingers.

Infection. Infection. The very word feels like a noose tightening around her throat, and a tremor runs through her.

"I—" she breathes, swallows, "I—I'm going to visit Erik." What else can she do? She cannot go to Konstin, cannot be with him, and she is no surgeon, no doctor. She pushes the word infection from her mind, and clenches her hands tight, drawing a breath to steady herself.

Raoul merely nods, and presses his lips gently to her forehead.

"All right. All right."

* * *

 

_No nose. But how could he just have no nose? It makes no sense. Was it just a hollow in his face? A gaping hole? Or was there skin over it? He closes his eyes and tries to visualise a face without a nose, and with skin stretched tight across the bones. Raoul said one could see the veins through the skin, but surely it could not be possible for skin to be stretched so tight. And if it was possible, if it was more than Raoul’s imagination, then he must have looked like he had spider webs branching out beneath his skin._

_Spider webs beneath his skin and no nose. And Nadir has told him about the lips, about the way they twisted. And of course he already knows about the eyes because Mamma has told him, more than once, that he has his father’s eyes._

_But with golden eyes, and spider webs beneath his skin, and no nose, and twisted lips, it’s not really a face at all, is it? It’s more like, like some sort of a distorted skull presented as a grotesque in the backdrop of a painting. Not a face. Certainly not his father’s face._

_Antoine says he should stop thinking about these things, but how can he not think about these things? It is these things that have made him, and he certainly does not look like a skull so how could his father have looked like a skull? His nose does not even look like Mamma’s, and if it doesn’t look like Mamma’s well then it must have come from Papa, and if it came from Papa then how did Papa just not have a nose?_

_He sighs and throws down the bow of his violin. It lands with a soft thud on the divan, and in the next moment his violin lands beside it. He needs a walk, just to go for a walk and forget all about it, and later, when she is back from the theatre, he will ask Mamma these questions about his father._

_He should have asked her years ago._

* * *

 

As the nurse pulls the sheets back down from Konstin’s neck, reveals the bandages wrapped around his body, Antoine cannot help his eyes falling to his neck. There is something missing, something that should be there and isn’t. What—

His Saint Anthony. The _wedding band_.

Again, as if in a memory, he feels the warmth of Konstin’s hand in his, feels himself slip the band onto his ring finger. Sees the way it shone in the dim lamplight. And he always wore it around his neck, hidden under his clothes. A secret from the world. Where is it? Why is it not there? It should be there. He never takes it off! He confessed once to sleeping with it and Antoine knows he does because he has slept with Konstin with that ring hanging on its chain and in the early morning light filtering through the blinds he cupped it in his hand.

Where is it? He didn’t lose it out there he couldn’t have. He lost his helmet, yes, but there is no way he could have lost two chains which were hidden under his shirt.

He’s going to die. That’s it. That must be it. Why else would he not have them? It’s a sign. They’ve taken them off him because he’s dying, he’s dying, and Antoine’s heart tightens, his lungs constricting, black spots dancing before him, and he can’t breathe, can’t breathe, how can he breathe when Konstin is going to stop? What other explanation can there be? He’s dying, he’s dying and they haven’t told him, have taken his chains, and he can’t die, he can’t, Antoine needs him too much, he _can’t_.

He’s going to be sick. Oh, God, he’s going to be sick, and the pain burns beneath his ribs, his throat burning as he retches, and there is a hand gentle on his shoulder, a voice whispering soft words, but it doesn’t matter, nothing matters. Konstin is dying, how can anything else matter?

* * *

 

Amélie finds her sitting outside. The late evening breeze is cool on her face, sun casting dappled shadows through the leaves of the trees. Lying out here Marguerite can almost forget, for a little time, everything going on in the building behind her. The canopy of the tree shields her from the world, and it is like some of the trees on the old family estate, so very far away from here. She used to lie out there under the trees, just like this, and spend hours in idle daydreams until someone, usually Guillaume but also often Antoine or Konstin or both, or even Papa, came looking for her to bring her back in. She would bring some of her books out with her, or her sewing or both, and it was like a little kingdom for her and her alone, hiding under the trees.

Oh, to be back there. To be that little girl again. To not have to think about wounds and drains and dressings and infections (and when Konstin’s face contorted in pain drifts before her she forces it away so as it cannot taint her thoughts, not right now). It seems so very far away from here, from all of this.

Amélie lowers herself to the ground, and Marguerite sighs, her little piece of hidden away time over.

“Any news?” she asks quietly, unwilling to sit up just yet. Another minute or two of lying down will hardly hurt anyone.

Amélie’s fingers are gentle as they take her hand and squeeze it. “Your brother is quite upset. I sat with him for a little while trying to soothe him, but he is still very anxious and worried. I doubt if he will settle until—until your cousin recovers.” There hanging in the air in that brief moment of hesitation is the question, the unspoken thought of _if_ Konstin will recover.

 _If_.

Marguerite swallows down the bile that rises in her throat, tries to focus on Amélie’s thumb rubbing slow circles into the back of her hand. He _will_ recover. He will. He has to. Any alternative outcome is simply unthinkable.

“The Capitaine, Dupuis isn’t it?” Marguerite nods in affirmation and Amélie continues on, her grip slightly tighter. “He is very restless. But I think it is the fever leaving him like that, more than any pain. Carrière examined him again a few minutes ago, and he thinks that with the injury to his spine he has no sensation in his legs, or of the surgical wound.” She swallows. “But his fever is very high.”

Marguerite sighs, and draws in a deep breathe to try to steady the pounding of her heart. Though she cannot see the sky properly through the trees, and the sun is still casting shadows though they are duller than only a few minutes ago, there is a very slight smell of rain on the air, cool and damp and raising the earthy smell of the soil.

She cannot bring herself to care if it rains while she’s still out here.

“Did—Did Carrière say what he thinks it is?”

Amélie does not answer, and Marguerite pulls her eyes away from the soft shadows to look at her face, sees the tight crease of her lips. “What did he say, Amélie?”

Amélie swallows again, and looks away from Marguerite, out under the trees. “Peritonitis. He says he thinks peritonitis.”

Peritonitis. The very word is like—like a death sentence falling, and Marguerite’s heart lurches, tears stinging her eyes.

“Does he think—does he think he can do anything?” Even to her own ears her voice is hoarse.

“He wants to try another surgery. To clean the cavity.” She looks back down at Marguerite, a slight quirk to her lip. “You know what Carrière is like. Always experimenting.”

“That’s why he’s good. He chances things.”

Silence falls between them. A silence with no pressure to speak, no need for words to fill the gap. And Marguerite regards Amélie, regards the soft look on her face, and in spite of all of the worries, in spite of the anxiety and the fear twisting nauseous in her gut, she wonders, for one brief flash of a moment, she wonders what it might be like to take Amélie in her arms and hold her. Just hold her.

Amélie sighs, and the moment dies. “I have a telegram for you, from Paris. It’s what brought me out.” And she reaches into her pocket, and withdraws it.

The questions swirl in Marguerite’s mind, her stomach churning. Is it Christine? Enquiring after Konstin? If it is, what could Marguerite tell her? That there is no change? His fever is still high? His condition is still grave? Or is it from Maman, asking after Antoine? Asking after Konstin too but Antoine first? And what could she tell _her?_ That his wound is healing as well as can be expected? No sign of fever but he is very anxious and unsettled over Konstin and will worry himself worse if things do not change?

There is nothing any good that she can tell anyone anymore. And it makes her want to scream.

With trembling hands, she takes the folded paper and opens it. Though the light is dimming there is still enough to read by, and her eyes catch on Guillaume’s name at the top. Guillaume? So he is home safe after all.

She reads the words, and tears prickle her eyes. TELL ANTOINE HE BROKE HIS PROMISE STOP PROMISED TO BE CAREFUL STOP AND TELL THAT COUSIN OF MINE HE NEEDS TO PULL THROUGH STOP THIS IS NO TIME FOR HIM TO BE DRAMATIC FINAL STOP

She can hear him say the words. Can hear the precise cadence of his voice, and her heart aches to feel his arms around her, for him to pull her close and tell her that they will be all right. And she knows, oh how she knows, that his abrupt words only mean that he is worried, as worried as she is. And if she could, if she could she would lay her head on his shoulder, and cease to be the nurse, cease to know so much about all of this, and just cry. Just cry.

The tears trickle down her cheeks, and Amélie’s hand is gentle stroking her hair.


	16. Fading in Time

_It was Mamma who got them bound in leather. Before that, she told him, they were bundles of sheets of paper, each composition tied with string to keep it together. But she got them bound, and then when the time came she picked a few of the best pieces out and had them performed._

_He gently opens the cover of the top book in the stack, and reveals the music within. The staff paper is hand-lined, though he knows from looking before that some of it was bought, the lines stamped on. But these ones, these ones must have been so time-consuming, and there are hundreds and hundreds of pages like them. Such careful work, how long must it have taken?_

_His fingers lightly trace the notes. Most of the pieces are instrumental, for organ or violin though occasionally for other instruments too, including the piano. Someday he will go through, and take the pieces for organ and try to re-work them to fit the piano. But it is the violin music he has always been drawn. The sweet, sad, aching of the violin music._

_Tears prickle his eyes, and he blinks them away hard. It would not do to cry over the staff paper, not after all of this time, all of these years. But the very thought, that his father wrote this music without ever thinking he would have a son to someday play it too—it tightens Konstin's throat, and his fingers tremble on the page._

_"Oh, Papa," he whispers, his voice thick, "oh, Papa."_

_Mamma's fingers are soft as they smooth back his hair, and he leans into her touch, sighing. Dimly he can see her, her face framed with her golden hair, and it makes her look so pretty, as if she were an angel. "Oh, Konstin," she whispers as his eyes slip closed, her lips brushing softly against his forehead, "Oh my precious little boy."_

_Through the darkness he feels a hand, wrapping around his own and pulling. It is a struggle to get his legs under him, knees buckling, the mud weighing him down, and overhead he hears the screech of a shell but it is not here, is falling over someone else, is blowing up someone else, and faintly he sees as if he is there the spatter of mud and blood and he chokes on the bile in his throat, that hand pulling him, and his feet scramble, find purchase in the wall of mud, and the next thing he is over the top, and the brightness stings his eyes, waters them, and the lines and lines of barbed wire half-submerged in mud are blurred but they don't matter and the shells don't matter because Antoine's mud-streaked face is before him, eyes watering too and lips trembling and then Antoine's arms are wrapping around him, pulling him close, and his heart lurches as Antoine whispers, his voice hoarse in his ear, "thank God you're alive. Thank God."_

* * *

 

Raoul does not often travel down below the opera with her, and it is rarer that he visits Erik's grave with her. But tonight Christine is grateful for him, grateful for the way his arms wrap around her waist, grateful for the way he cradles her head to his chest, grateful for the way he kisses her hair and sways gently with her.

(He stayed away, for a long time even tonight, and she lay on the cold ground, listening to the sound of her own breathing, trying not to think of her boy so far away, trying only to think of Erik, of how he would hold her or she would him, but Konstin kept creeping back into her thoughts and making it so hard to breathe, until Raoul finally joined her, and wrapping his hands around hers pulled her to her feet.)

She does not cry. She is so wrung out she has nothing left to cry, and the thought of Konstin having developed an infection is simply one more awful thing, one more twisting terrible thing in her stomach that makes her ache all the more. So the tears stay at bay of their own accord as she stands there by the grave of her first husband in the arms of her second, and they do not speak, not for a long time, her heart steadying just by the fact of being here, of being this close to Erik.

The silence stretches between them, stretches on for a long time, the soft beating of their hearts all that she can hear until, eventually, Raoul whispers, "Erik is with him, Christine, I know he is. He’s watching over him." And the thought of Erik, sitting with the son he never met, being there to comfort to him when she cannot, is the thought that makes tears prickle her eyes.

* * *

 

He keeps his eyes tightly screwed shut, unable to bear the sight of the nurse tending to Konstin. She is sponging down his stitches, opening up each of his bandages as she works, and the sharp edge of the smell of disinfectant makes Antoine feel nauseous. It is so overpowering it masks any stench from Konstin’s wounds, and though she gave Konstin more morphine before she started, he still whimpers as she works, and those pained whimpers and the sloshing of her disinfectant solution are all the sound that reaches Antoine’s ears.

He tries to focus on other things, tries to think of things outside of this room, but it is as if this room has become the whole world, as if everything out there has simply dropped away, ceased to exist. Even when Marguerite visited earlier, and told him that she’s had a telegram from Guillaume and he is home safe, there was only the barest flicker of relief in Antoine’s heart at the news his twin is well, as if Guillaume is not his twin, is the twin of another Antoine, somewhere else, who is not wounded in hospital and bound to listen to his lover’s fevered murmurs. What does anything else matter, when there is only this? When there is only Konstin in pain and him, unable to help him at all?

Tears trickle from the corners of his eyes, but he does not lift his hand to wipe them away, pain twisting too deeply in his chest. What do his tears matter now?

* * *

 

_A little brother. A tiny little brother. Even though he knew his mother was expecting, of course he knew that, he did not expect to get a little brother._

_The little boy snuffles in his sleep, the weight of him light on Konstin's chest. He was crying, and Raoul was talking to the doctor, and Mamma was resting, so Konstin gently lifted him out of his crib, and lay down with him on the sofa, settling the baby to lie on his chest, head over his heart. Mamma told him, before, back when Anja was tiny, that when he was a baby it used to settle him to lie on her chest and listen to her heart._

_"A baby gets used to listening to a heartbeat, you see, before they are born," she said, and her words came back to him as he held his tiny brother, and sure enough listening to Konstin's heart soothed the baby's crying into whimpers, and then into sleep._

_He does not have a name yet. He is two days old, and still he has no name. "We'll wait until your mother is stronger," Raoul had said, his voice hoarse and tears shining in his eyes, "and then let her decide."_

_Wait until she is stronger. Even now, two days later, the words make Konstin's heart lurch. There was a haemorrhage, he knows, a terrible, awful haemorrhage afterwards, and she lost a lot of blood, which is why the doctor comes every few hours, checking up on her and making certain it does not start again._

_If it starts again—_

_Konstin's blood runs cold, like ice water through his veins, and he pushes the thought away, curls his arm tighter around the baby on his chest. It will not start again. It will not. It cannot. It is not allowed to, and besides, Mamma said herself that she would be all right._

_It was hours before he was allowed to see her, even after the haemorrhage had been stopped, and when he was let into the room, his knees were weak and he knelt beside the bed, and laid his head on her shoulder with tears spilling from his eyes, unable to bear the sight of her white face, and the blue tinge to her pale lips, and she whispered, as she wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close to her, that she would be all right, "I will, Konstin, I will, I promise."_

_The baby stirs, draws Konstin back out of the memory and makes him realise that there are tears damp on his cheeks again. He wipes them away roughly, and the baby whimpers, then settles. It would not do to cry while holding the baby. It would not do._

* * *

 

Is she abandoning them? Abandoning Konstin by being unable to bear seeing him in such a state? Abandoning Antoine by being unable to reassure him because she cannot bear to see Konstin? Abandoning Dupuis by being unable to bring herself to sit with him, to take his hand and squeeze it and tell him a thousand times that he will be well? (A thousand times though the very words feel like a lie when she thinks of how pallid he is, of the flush across his cheeks and the threadiness of his pulse and the way he whimpers with fever. She never thought she would be thankful for someone to have a spinal injury, but if it keeps him from being in pain...)

"I thought you would be with your cousin." The soft voice of the curé, Dumas, stirs Marguerite from her thoughts, and she looks up to find him settling onto the bench next to her. He raises an eyebrow at her. "Or, if not with your cousin and brother, then the Capitaine that you seem so troubled over."

What can she tell him? That she is too anxious to sit with them, with any of them? That the thought of seeing them now makes her want to vomit, makes cold sweat break out on her skin and her heart pound? That she has abandoned them, left them, aches to run away, run as far away as she can and not have to think about this, any of this? That she longs to just forget that any of this has happened? How peaceful it would be, to forget. How easy, to not have to know, to just be able to _breathe_.

"I—" she opens her mouth, but cannot find an answer for him, all the words too hollow, every one of them a lie, of one sort or another. And she cannot lie, not to a priest. It would be blasphemous to lie to a priest.

It takes him a moment, but then his eyes widen and a knowing look crosses his face. Slowly, he reaches out, and curls his fingers around hers, squeezing them gently. "I understand." He swallows, nodding to himself, and her breath catches in her throat waiting for what he will say. Is he going to tell her off? Call her a coward, unable to face her duty? Will he berate her? Give her three rosaries as penance? He can surely feel her beads wrapped between her fingers. "I understand that your cousin is gravely ill, as is the Capitaine."

It is not a question, and she nods, her throat too tight to speak with hearing those words spoken in his soft voice. Gravely ill. And though his eyes are kind the words pierce her heart, a sharp, shooting pain.

"At such times," he continues, as if she did answer him, as if she is able to speak, "at such times of—of great personal disturbance, the Church can be a tremendous comfort, and often great solace may be found in turning to God." He stops, but it is not the sort of silence that words are meant to fill, and she waits, her heart pounding, for what he is going to say. "But in your case, I do not think you are turning to God for solace, but for guidance. And as his messenger, I feel I need to tell you that I think you need to visit your cousin, and the Capitaine. Whatever about it being your duty, but for your own sake. I do not think you will be easy in yourself unless you spend time with them. I may not be a man of medicine, but I do know that a great deal of difficulty lies ahead, for both of them. And if—if the worst were to happen, and you were not able to face seeing them, either of them, I think it will cause you a great deal of turmoil to have to live with that. You may be a great comfort to them, if you were there, but I think you need to be there to be a comfort to yourself." He falls silent, and tears prickle Marguerite's eyes, his words circling in her brain.

_...if the worst were to happen._

_...a comfort to yourself._

What if Konstin were to die? If his heart were simply to stop and she were not there? What if Dupuis—Edouard—what if Edouard were to stop breathing? Her stomach churns, and she swallows down the bile that burns her throat.

The very thought of them—

Her lungs constrict, constrict so tight she cannot breathe, her heart pounding hard and she gasps, lungs burning for air, tears prickling her eyes and she tries to fight them, tries to keep them at bay because it is undignified to cry, undignified to weep when they are still breathing, both of them and Antoine too, but she can't help it, can't, and the tears spill, wet on her cheeks, and the curé's arms are wrapping around her, pulling her close, his hand patting her back and the tears keep coming, keep spilling, and he rocks her, and distantly she hears him murmur Latin into her ear, the Salve Regina, and she gasps, and leans her head on his shoulder, and lets his words wash over her.

* * *

 

_"You've become a very fine musician, Konstin," Sorelli smiles at him, her voice low beneath the music of the string quartet in order to be heard, and though it is supposed to be him leading her across the ballroom, it is really her leading him. "I swear you've improved even since I heard you three months ago. Absolutely exquisite. I promise I will not tell your mother but," and there is a twinkle in her eye, "is there a special someone inspiring you?"_

_In spite of all his best efforts, Konstin feels a warm flush burn his neck and spread across his cheeks. A special someone? Certainly none of the girls at the Conservatoire or of the ballet are special enough to inspire him, but Antoine— no he must not let his eyes drift to Antoine where he is dancing with a young lady of another aristocratic family, and it would not do to make eyes at him while dancing with his mother and Antoine does not even know and ahhh the twisting feelings in his chest that make it difficult to breathe are going to make him giddy and he fights to keep his voice steady as he says, "No, no one special."_

_The dance fades, Sorelli slipping from his hands, and he is so tired, so tired, too tired to open his eyes, and there are arms carrying him, warm arms, safe arms, carrying him and a heart beating steady beneath his ears, and the arms are laying him down, and he is too tired to open his eyes, even when a warm hand smooths his hair back, a blanket draping heavy over him and Darius' voice is soft as it says, "sleep well, young Konstin, sleep well."_

And his eyes are flickering open, flickering open to bright light that burns them, makes them sting and water, and dimly he sees the impression of a face he does not know, hears a voice that murmurs a question that seems only a jumble of words and he cannot decipher them, cannot— and the air is so cold, so cold as he shivers, pain throbbing deep in his leg, searing in his stomach, and a hand wrapped around his own is gentle and he manages to look down, sees long white fingers and a black sleeve, all that is clear to his sight, and his eyes follow the trail of that sleeve, up to where it meets a shoulder, and a high collar framing the neck, and the face, when he finds it, has no nose, looks like a skull, gold-hazel eyes soft and twisted lips smiling kindly at him, but though the face looks like a skull there is no fear in his heart, and he sighs, breathes a faint, "Papa," before the world is lost to him again and he is falling, falling, falling.

* * *

 

She needs to finish the scarf, needs to finish it. If she finishes the scarf he'll be well. She just needs to finish the scarf.

The clicking of the knitting needles obliterate every other thought, obliterate the snoring of Raoul sleeping beside her, obliterate the memory of Capitaine de Courcy coming with his hat in his hand because he "wanted to know if there was any news", obliterate the thought of Anja's own knitting, obliterate Émile's insistence on going to work, obliterate the mental image of Konstin, lying still and silent and pale, wrapped in bandages.

No, she cannot think of him like that. She needs to think of him as he was the last time he was home on leave, so tall and proud playing his violin, his eyes closed as he swayed with the flow of the music.

And he was so like Erik. The thought was one she could not fight, not even then and it caused a flicker of pain in her heart that faded quickly, but it comes back to her now, the way he stood just the same as his father. Is it true what Raoul said? That Erik is watching over Konstin? She hopes it is, hopes he is there. It would be a comfort to Konstin, to think that he might be there.

She swallows, her throat tight, and tries to push the thoughts away. It is the scarf that matters. So long as she finishes the scarf, all will be well.

* * *

 

It becomes harder and harder for Antoine to sleep, harder and harder to escape what is happening to Konstin. As day turns to night and night wears on, he lies there watching every move that the young nurse (whom he has heard addressed alternately as Amélie and Montpellier by other nurses who have been in and out, though none of them have been Marguerite) who is stationed with Konstin makes. She tends to his fever, draping damp clothes over his forehead and throat, and she checks his bandages and every so often loosens them to clean his stitches, and she makes notes of his pulse and his blood pressure and the sight of her fingers pressing into Konstin's wrist never fails to make Antoine's heart clench.

As Konstin murmurs, she talks to him in a soft voice, speaking soothing words, and a tendril of jealousy twists in Antoine's stomach, because he should be the one sitting beside Konstin, he should be the one whispering to him softly and holding his hand and settling his whimpers. Not her, not this nurse they've never met before, but him. It is his right, is his duty, and when Konstin falls silent and Antoine can hear, can truly hear how shallow his breaths are, tears spring to his eyes, stinging hot, and he knows, he knows that the silence is not the silence of hope but the silence of exhaustion, and the only reason he is not still shifting in the bed is because he has grown so weak.

He needs to go to him. Needs to be there, and he tries to move, tries to swing his legs down so his feet will touch the floor but the moment he leans to the side there is a sharp tugging pain beneath his ribs and he gasps, sweat breaking out on his forehead, and the nurse's hands (when did she move? he never saw her move) are pushing him back down, back down into the bed, pulling the covers up to his chin.

"You need to rest," she whispers, her lips creased with worry and he is still gasping trying to catch his breath, trying to fight the pain still stabbing him in waves, "you need to rest or you will only make yourself more ill and you will be no good to him then."

She disappears, and he tilts his head, his breaths still coming hard as he tries to find her, and there she is consulting a chart, before she withdraws a small bottle and a hypodermic from her pocket, and an icy chill passes over Antoine's skin.

No! He cannot have more morphine! More morphine will make him sleep and he cannot sleep now because what if Konstin dies while he's asleep? What if he wakes and finds him gone and some stranger lying in that bed?

The nurse is saying something, something he cannot understand but which cannot matter because she doesn't understand. How could she understand? He needs to be awake! He needs to be! And he needs to go to Konstin, needs to take his hand and make him promise to live, needs to order him to be all right but Konstin never listens when he orders him and if he did listen he would not be lying here now, would be safe behind the lines after coming out of the trenches and he, Antoine, would not need to worry about him and if he could take Konstin's hand, could take it and squeeze it he would promise him that he will love him forever, and that alone, that alone would surely be enough to make him fight harder.

The stinging pinch of the needle breaks Antoine's thoughts, and the nurse's face swims before him, her lips moving though the words are disjointed coming to his ears. "I promise I'll wake you if there's any change in him. I promise." And it's on the tip of his tongue to ask her about Konstin's Saint Anthony, about the ring, but sleep is pulling heavy at his eyelids, the sleep he has been fighting for so long, and between one heartbeat and another he loses the thread of the thought.

He is distantly aware of fingers at his throat, of murmured Latin, but for a moment there is only Konstin's grey face, and then there is nothing more.

* * *

 

_It is the shifting of a tiny body next to his that wakes him, and Konstin blinks his eyes open. The room is dark, early morning light filtering in through the blinds, and he groans._

_"Sorry." The voice next to him is soft, and he shifts, looks down to find Anja nestling in beside him, her blonde curls loose. "I didn't mean to wake you, ‘stin," she whispers, but the whisper is loud, and he sighs._

_"It's all right, Anja." She was asleep when he arrived home, and Nadir said that she'd been waiting up but had dozed off on the sofa._

_"She's very excited for you to come home," he said, his eyes twinkling and a smile faintly curving his lips. "A year is a long time for a little girl like her." More than a year, of touring and travelling and living with Antoine, and he comes home to find his three year old sister a girl of five, and his baby brother a talkative two year old who woke when Mamma looked in on him and when he heard "Kon" was here insisted on seeing him, and then was struck with shyness to see the older brother he could not remember._

_"Nadir said you were in 'sha. Was it very hot? Did you see any snakes? Were there elephants? Did you bring me a present?" Anja's voice breaks back into his thoughts. So many questions from someone so small, and he's barely awake. He swallows, his eyes slipping closed again._

_"I brought you some ribbons. I'll give them to you later." And a nice doll, and some colourful toys. Later after he gets some more sleep._

_"Yay! Can I stay in here?"_

_"If you promise to be quiet. I'm very tired."_

_"All right. And ‘stin?"_

_"Yes?"_

_"I missed you."_


	17. Questions and Comprehension

_Flashes of light against the insides of his eyelids, but he is too tired to open them. They must be shells, off in distance. At another time, the thought would worry him, would make him check on his men and ask Dupuis for updates and cause anxious fear for the men out there to twist in his heart, but not tonight. Not when he has Antoine's arms around him again, Antoine's heart beating softly beneath his ear. Such a lovely heartbeat. He could listen to it forever, over and over, the softest, sweetest melody. Could weave it into a violin composition, the soft susurration of blood getting pumped through is body, of his breaths, each one an affirmation that he is alive, alive, alive._

_Antoine is safe. And how can anything be wrong in the world if Antoine is safe?_

* * *

 

There has been no telegram, not since the one telling her about the infection. And no telegram can only mean that he is still alive, terribly ill, but still fighting.

It's not much hope, but Christine will take what she can get right now.

Sorelli has not had a telegram either. But Sorelli's last news was not of infection, was simply a line saying that Antoine’s wound “showed good signs” (what is that supposed to mean anyway? It is like some sort of a code, containing information only accessible to those in the know) and he is resting. And not for the first time, Christine wonders if Antoine knows about Konstin. If he knows, he is hardly in any state to rest. The two of them have always been so close, and Antoine has always worried so.

And Konstin, Konstin likely does not know about Antoine. Not with how badly wounded he is himself, and with this infection. And it is probably for the best that way, that he does not know. He would fret himself.

Christine cannot bring herself to feel relieved at the thought of his ignorance. There is no room in her heart now for relief, too many questions crowding it out. Is he looking for her, her little boy? Asking for her as if she can take the pain away? He must be in such pain, or is he too drugged with that dreadful morphine to feel it? She has always hated morphine, hated it for the way Erik needed it, but the thought that it might bring some comfort to Konstin, might keep his pain at bay...

What if he does want her? How could she go to him? She aches to, aches to take his hand, and kiss his forehead, and sing for him as if he were that tiny boy again who insisted she go to the opera instead of staying home to take care of him. She wound wrap her arms around him, and hold him close, and hum to him softly as she nuzzled into his hair, and hope it would keep his nightmares at bay. (Please God let him not have nightmares. The pain is bad enough, the wounds, but, Lord, spare him from the nightmares.)

Her whole body is trembling, trembling with her thoughts, and Sorelli must notice because she reaches over and takes her hand, and squeezes it gently though she does not say a word. She does not need to speak, not truly. They are both bound by their worry. What room is there for words between them?

If she listens, clears her mind and focuses, she can hear only faint whispers of voices from the other room. Raoul and Philippe have sequestered themselves away with Guillaume and a bottle of cognac, and they have never found such comfort in silence. She cannot make out what it is they are saying, but surely it is irrelevant, some minor thing to distract themselves and Heaven knows they need distraction but she needs distraction too only she cannot find it, not anywhere, and she is left sitting here, with her own breathing and Sorelli's and the soft ticking of the clock, her throat as dry as the desert, waiting. Endlessly waiting.

* * *

 

He can hear the music, tinkling softly on the phonograph, can feel Konstin's arms around his waist as they sway. He leans in, lays his head against that chest, and sighs, Konstin's hand warm as it slips up his back, cups the nape of his neck and he—

and—

—and the rustling of clothes breaks the spell of the memory, Antoine's eyes flickering open to find the same dark ceiling he has been staring at for so long now, and a face swimming before him.

A face?

He blinks rapidly to clear his vision, swallowing, and it comes to him slowly through the haze of his thoughts that it is Marguerite. Marguerite sitting beside him, her face pinched and ashen-pale. Pale? Why—why is she pale? Did something happen? Is she all right?

Konstin. It must be over Konstin, and at the very thought there is a check at Antoine's heart, and he turns his head, half-fearing for a moment that Konstin is gone, but finds him lying there, in the other bed, as pallid and grey as he was before and just to see him there is a relief even if nauseous anxiety twists afresh in his stomach. Konstin and an infection and his Saint Anthony is missing and the wedding band and the fact that they are missing must surely mean that he is going to die and Antoine's heart pounds painfully, his breaths coming in short gasps but Marguerite is shushing him gently, patting his hand, stroking his hair, and her eyes shine with tears.

"He'll be all right, Antoine, he'll be all right."

But how will he be all right if the Saint Anthony is missing? It is supposed to keep him safe, supposed to keep him well, but if it is missing it cannot keep him well and maybe that is why he got an infection and— and—

"His Saint Anthony—" Antoine gasps, unable to fully get the words out, unable to ask her if she might know where it is, and a look crosses her face, a look he cannot make out, and her hand is leaving his hair, is reaching into the inside of her uniform and slowly, infinitely slowly as if the world has stopped turning, she pulls out two gold chains. And as they come free a Saint Anthony dangles from the end of one of them, and a wedding band from the other, and Antoine's heart lurches as he stretches out his hand, and feels the weight of them as she lays them in his hand.

"I took them for safe-keeping before his surgery," she murmurs, her voice low, but the words rush over Antoine and all he can hear is his own heart pounding as he looks at that wedding band.

The wedding band. The way it glints around Konstin's finger when under candlelight though it is so rarely on his finger, only when they are together. It would be too dangerous otherwise though it is made to perfectly fit. He took the measurements himself to know.

His hand trembles, nose tingling and tears burning his eyes and they blur the sight of the thin gold band. Will he ever see it around Konstin's finger again? Will he ever get the chance?

Distantly he is aware of Marguerite calling his name, her voice high with concern, but it is so very far away, and there are only the tears stinging his eyes, the wedding band in his hand, until the world fades to black.

* * *

 

Erik said, once, that he would marry her in the Madeleine. It was that awful night, the terrible night when he would have killed Raoul and Nadir out of madness in his torture chamber only for she realised that she truly did love him. _Do you throw yourself under the wheels of a cab as we leave the Madeleine?_ She can still hear the hiss in his voice, see the sparks that danced in his eyes and she shivers at the memory, but they never spoke of it again. Not of that night, only to acknowledge its existence, once or twice, and not of the possibility of marrying in the Madeleine.

They both knew it was out of the question, really. It was likely for the best. It is too sprawling, too vast with its high vaulting ceilings and colonnades. They would both have been terribly out of place, dwarfed by the sheer magnificence of it.

If he had been anyone else, would they have married here? And if they had, would she be sitting here now, her mind a tangled mess and her Rosary beads wound tight between her fingers, praying for the life of her son so very far away. Did they curse him to suffer so by marrying as they did, secretly and privately, beneath the Garnier in a ceremony of Nadir’s own devising? They were married before God but not before the Church, and if they had married before the church would Konstin be wounded now?

It is a question without an answer, a question she could never hope to answer, not in this lifetime. And she tries to push it away, tries to focus on her prayers, tries to call on every saint there is, but it wanders back, again and again. Is it somehow her fault, her fault and Erik’s, that Konstin must suffer now? Are his wounds their penance for the sins they committed so long ago?

She hopes not. Oh, how she _hopes_.

She has never confessed it to a priest. It was a sin, yes, surely, but no worse a sin than those that get committed every night in Paris by other couples who love each other outside the bounds of the faith. But perhaps she should find a priest. Perhaps she should sit down with him and say, _yes, I loved Erik. Yes, he could be violent, and cruel, and was prone to bursts of temper, but he was capable of great gentleness too, and kindness, and I loved him, and I still love him, and he loved me. No, we were not married before a priest and yes, our son was conceived out of wedlock, but it was out of wedlock only in the eyes of the law and the Church, and we considered ourselves married, considered ourselves bound to each other. No, I do not regret the conception of my son. No, I do not repent his existence. The remorse I feel is for the possibility that the way we chose to live may be the reason our son is so ill now._

How could she confess that to a priest? How could he absolve her of it? She does not repent. She does not feel remorse for the fact of Konstin’s life. She does not regret loving Erik. What is there that a priest can hope to do for her?

Nothing. Not a single thing. And it is that simple fact that makes her squeeze her beads tighter, and draw a deep breath to ease the pounding of her heart.

If a priest can be of no help, she will simply have to pray hard enough to help Konstin herself.

* * *

 

It comes to Marguerite slowly, as if it is something she has always somehow known but never put words to. Love. (Dupui—Edouard's fingers twitch in her hand as she thinks it.) Love. Tenderness. Affection and longing and desperation. They are all the things that shine in Antoine's eyes each time he asks for Konstin, each time he looks over at him. All of those things, but love most of all.

How did she not see it sooner?

Surely it has been there for years, clear in his eyes, only she was too blind, or too young, or just too distracted to see it. But now it all slots together, and it is not a shock so much as a moment of clarity, as if all at once the rain has cleared and there simply is what has been there all along, revealed.

The colour drained from Antoine's face when he held the wedding band and the Saint Anthony, and something prickled at the back of her mind even then though she was too caught up in the fact that he was about to faint, when his eyes rolled her fingers fumbled at his throat, seeking out his pulse. She knew it was there, knew it with complete and total certainty, but the moment she felt the flutter of his pulse (a little too fast, but strong and there) a powerful wave of relief washed over her (one hears stories, after all, of hearts stopping suddenly with powerful emotions) and she sank back into her chair, feeling suddenly weak though not for the first time today.

And still the pieces did not slot into place.

Carefully she lifted the two chains and cupped them in her own hand, her mind replaying the way he held them so gently, the way he stared at them as if they were the most precious things in the world, instead of merely a Saint Anthony and an old wedding ring. And she wondered what it was about them that made him react so, that made him faint, but she does not have to wonder now.

It was because they were Konstin’s, _are_ Konstin’s. All because they are Konstin’s.

But she did not know it then, or some part of her knew it, felt it in her bones, though it was not obvious to her brain. A groan from the bed interrupted her wondering, and she looked back at Antoine, found a furrow between his brows, and his face tight. She curled her fingers around the chains to keep them safe, and gently took his hand. "Antoine," she whispered, "Antoine you're all right."

And he whimpered, whimpered at her words so that she shushed him and squeezed his hand tighter. But instead of quieting, he breathed "Kon...Konstin” and his eyelids flickered, opened to find her sitting there, and she did not have the strength to smile. He turned his head, and found Konstin lying in the other bed (the way he has done each time he wakes, she realises now though she did not think it then), and his voice was rough with the tears in his eyes as he whispered, “he can’t die, Marguerite, he can’t.”

She shushed him, shushed him and wrapped her arms around him as the tears trickled down his cheeks, and whispered a hundred, a thousand soft things, soft promises that _of course he’s not going to die_ and _he just needs more time to rest_ and _he will get well he will_ all the time wishing that she could believe them, that they were not lies as dry as sand rolling off her tongue, pretending that they were not words she has whispered to other men, other soldiers, some of the nurses, over and over and over again in these last three years, wishing that her tongue cannot form them so easily, does not know the shape of them so well.

She held him, rocked him as if he were a child though he is older than her (so much older than her, but age is an irrelevant thing now, hardly matters when there are mere boys lying in bits in the mud), whispered to him for what felt like hours until his breaths evened and sheer exhaustion pulled him back to sleep. And then she lay him down, and dried the tears that still lay damp and rough on his cheeks, and pulled the sheets up to his chin, the tears dripping from her own eyes with the weight of the lie-like promises she had told him,

She did not bother trying to wipe them away. They would only come again, and her eyes water now at the memory of them.

With the Saint Anthony and the wedding band held safe in her hand, she turned to Konstin, lying whimpering in the bed behind her, his lips parted with his gasping breaths. And she eased his sheets down, and his neck was warm beneath her touch as she clasped the two chains back around it, the little saint in his capsule and the wedding band lying pooled in the hollow between his collarbones. She groped for something to say, something soothing, as if he could hear her in the depths of his own unconsciousness, but the words all fled from her mind and she could only tuck the sheets back around him, and stroke back a lock of dark hair falling over his forehead.

And now she wonders, sitting here beside Edouard who is sleeping too, unconscious with the power of his own fever, wonders if Konstin loves Antoine too. Does he dream of him, see him behind his closed eyes? The handful of times he has drifted to wakefulness as she sat with him he asked for Antoine with worry flickering in his good eye (likely in the wounded one two, though the bandage hides it from the world). He must care for Antoine deeply, must love him too, in some way. In the same way, maybe. A way that they have only between them.

He must.

The twitching of Edouard’s fingers brings her back to him, and she presses his fingers gently to her lips. His eyes flicker, but do not open, a faint crease in his brow but he is not in pain. If he were in pain, between his wounds and the peritonitis he would be screaming by now.

She cannot bring herself to feel relieved for his numbness.

For stretching minutes she watches him, her thoughts hollow and his fingers cold, but he does not wake, and when at last his fingers still again, and the slight roughness in his breathing eases, the crease fading from his eyes, she leans in and with her lips beside his ear she whispers, hoping there is some small part of him that can hear her, “Call me Marguerite.”

As she pulls back, a single tear falls from her eye to his cheek, but she does not wipe it away.


	18. Acceptance, Insistence, and Visitation

“You need to hold on, Konstin.” The voice is soft, the faint trace of an accent twisting his heart to hear it. He has not heard that voice in so long, and the soft cadence of it conjures the image of a fireplace, the room lit by a soft glow, a warm chest behind his back, the ticking of a pocket watch and an arm strong around his waist, holding him in place, the voice gently correcting his pronunciation. _Roll the ‘r’ a little less, Konstin. You are doing are so well._

His lips struggle to form the name, the memory of the shape of it a pang of pain in his heart. He has not spoken that name in years, has not been able to bring himself to, has cradled it close and thought of him often but speaking of him was impossible.

“Na…dir.” It breaks on his tongue, and the voice is gentle shushing him.

“Don’t try to speak, Konstin. Don’t try to speak. It is more important that you rest now.” A flicker of a smile, sad and kind in that creased old face, olive eyes shining with tears. “You need to save your strength.”

A soft brush of a hand over his forehead, and the veil closes over his thoughts again.

* * *

 “When did you last eat?” Minette’s voice is stern, and Marguerite casts her mind back, struggling to remember. When _did_ she last eat? Was it yesterday? The day before? She had a bite of something, she thinks, but the very thought of eating makes her feel ill.

“I…” She trails off, and Minette makes a moue of distaste.

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember! Marguerite! I know you have an awful lot to worry about, but that is no excuse. No wonder you swooned.”

 _Swooned is a strong word,_ Marguerite thinks but does not answer, knowing that Minette would not be impressed. In truth, she didn’t really swoon. She just got a little bit light-headed as she stood up from sitting with Edouard (Edouard, blessedly, is still asleep and so is unaware of the fact that Minette is currently trying to smother her with attention), and Minette (unfortunately) happened to be in the room checking on a Lieutenant with a head wound (he will likely die in the next couple of hours, which is no great surprise considering the fact that Carrière diagnosed him with a haemorrhage in the brain. The surprising thing is that he’s held on this long.) And the moment Minette saw her sway she was on her, guiding her back down into the chair and talking to her in a soothing voice, as if she were some sort of an invalid, and pouring her a glass of water from the pitcher and insisting that she drink it slowly. (Though Marguerite will admit that did help to steady her, but she just needed to move a little less slowly and she would have been fine.)

“…I know you haven’t slept either…” Minette is still carrying on, but how was Marguerite supposed to sleep? Konstin with an infection and Antoine worrying himself into a state and Edouard’s fever resolutely refusing to go down not to mention the load of men that came in gassed and had to have their eyes dressed and their lungs checked and some of them are in a bad state. Where was there ever time to sleep? Or at least to sleep without waking every few minutes and some new horrible worry on her mind?

(Not that she tried sleeping, to be honest. It seemed like a waste of time when it was never going to happen. She has spent more time in the chapel these last few days than in bed.)

“…no protesting…you’re going to have some broth and go to bed or else I will tell Matron that you’re not looking after yourself!”

_No no no no no don’t tell Matron!_

Going to bed is the last thing she wants to do, but if the alternative is that Minette will tell Matron…

She supposes she’ll manage to swallow the broth somehow.

* * *

 

He could not stay lying down. If he stayed lying down a moment longer he might actually have gone mad. He has laid there quite patiently for days and it has not made a difference to Konstin. He is still feverish, still ill, and Antoine’s heart still twists painfully each time he murmurs, each time he asks for someone. (Last time it was Nadir he called for, and Antoine thought he might faint to hear that name again. Even though it’s been years his arms can still feel how he cradled Konstin to him as he wept and it was painful enough to hear him faintly ask for his Papa but to hear him ask for _Nadir_ …)

No. He really could not stay lying down.

And that was why he asked the nurse, the kindly nurse who seems to be the one who spends the most time trying to lower Konstin’s fever by laying damp cloths on his head and at his throat (and Antoine’s eyes watered when he saw the chains of the Saint Anthony and the wedding band back around his neck as she pulled the sheets down), the one whom Marguerite has called Amélie, if she would help him over to Konstin’s bed. He knew he could not make it himself, his wound protested at the mere thought, tingling with pain that made him stifle a gasp, and she hesitated, but only for a moment before she nodded.

And that is how he has come to find himself, sitting in the chair beside Konstin’s bed and a blanket draped around his shoulders. She gave him another dose of morphine, just a small one, enough that the tiredness does not weigh him down though the pain is dulled away again, and he curls his hand gently around Konstin’s wrist, unwilling to take his hand in front of her in case it makes her wonder.

(His wrist feels so delicate, and if Antoine squeezes he can feel the pulse brushing against his fingertips, and his eyes water to feel that Konstin has a pulse even though he knows he has, he _knows_.)

Up close, it is easy to see the wounds to Konstin’s face. Before he could only see part of it, and he remembers too well the way the blood coated the left side and now he can see the gash over his left eye, and the other one slicing down his cheekbone. He could not see the bandage over the eye before and he shudders at the sight of it, a voice whispering at the back of his mind _I hope it does not blind him_ and he shakes that voice away, shakes it, such voices are no good now, no good to him or to Konstin though he feels nauseous at the very thought.

There are so many things he could say. So many things he _wants_ to say. Words of love, of gentleness. Promises to be here, to always be here, to never leave him. Memories of their being close, of nights spent in each other’s arms. How he loves Konstin more than anything else in the world, how he needs him, needs him so badly and he can’t die, he _can’t._

But he can’t speak, can’t speak any of them, because the nurse will hear and the nurse will know and she cannot be allowed to know, she _cannot_.

Oh, how he aches to cradle him close. Aches to hold him and rock him and kiss him forever, to keep him safe, to be together, just the two of them and no one else, they do not need anyone else, not when they have each other. But even taking his hand is more than he can risk, and how can he kiss him now when anyone could see?

He is still fighting the tears in his eyes when he lays his head down on the pillow next to Konstin’s, and words slip from his lips in Persian. Persian. Nadir taught him Persian years ago, taught him and Konstin and Guillaume when they were only boys and he has never lost the words though it has been so long since he needed them, so long.

(Konstin told him he should take on translation work instead of active duty. But how could he take on translation work when Konstin was at the Front? Konstin could have taken on translation work too, they both could have, they could have done it together, but to stay safely behind the lines when so many did not even have that option was abhorrent to them both, but how Antoine wishes now that they had. How he wishes.)

The words come in Persian, and Russian, all of the things he could not say in their own French for fear of discovery and he knows if Konstin can hear he will understand, he knows.

And as if in affirmation, hardly has Antoine murmured his love when Konstin’s head turns, ever so slightly, towards him on the pillow, and his uncovered eye flickers open for the barest moment so that Antoine can see a glimmer of golden iris before it slips closed again and Konstin sighs, and the words all catch in Antoine’s throat so that he can only murmur them thickly through his tears.

* * *

 

Persian, murmured words, hushed and faint. He can feel them, sense them, and over the pounding of his heart he strains to listen to them closer, but the thread of their meaning is lost to him. Sweet Persian. That voice has murmured those words into his skin, breathed them into his throat, so many times, and he whimpered beneath that soft breath, tears welling in his eyes. He is so tired, too tired to pick out what they are, the pain burning in his stomach, but just to feel them against him, their soft lilting…

The words wash over him, and wrap him in his dreams.

* * *

 

She has always heard that sodomy is a sin. Legal, but a sin. But the fact that Antoine and Konstin love each other does not make them sodomites. How can something as good, as pure as love, ever possibly be a sin? It only means that they each need the other to survive, need to know the other is breathing too, that his heart is still beating. And it comes to her, comes to her all of a sudden, that if Konstin dies then Antoine, surely, will die too. Will simply give up fighting and let himself fade away.

And Antoine cannot die. She could not bear it if Antoine died.

But is it natural? Is it the way things are supposed to be? If they love each other then they do not love women (and, thinking back, she cannot remember either of them ever properly courting a woman, though she always put it down to their being too busy as officers, too caught up in military affairs to care). And if they do not love women, then they will not have children. And if they love each other and do not have children because they do not love women, then is that treason?

The sodomites are treasonous, want the Germans to win. That is what all of the whispers are, all of the ones she has heard.

But if Konstin and Antoine are Commandants, are leading the fight against the Germans then they cannot _want_ the Germans to win, and whether or not they are intimate with women should not come into it.

Surely if they love each other, it is because God intended it. Everyone is made in his image, after all.

But if everyone is made in his image then the Germans and the Austrians must be too, and if the Germans and the Austrians are too, then what makes them any different?

If German men can love each other the way Antoine seems to love Konstin (and they do, she knows, half-remembering the whole scandalous affair with Eulenberg though it seemed so very far removed from her them, did not seem to matter at all) then do the German people say that their sodomites are treasonous and want the French to win?

Does it matter? Does any of it matter?

Marguerite is giving herself a headache thinking such things, and she sighs and closes her eyes, shutting out the view of her dull quarters. Minette has not decided to stay by her bed to ensure that she gets some sleep, and that is for the best. Better to let Minette think that she has rested than for her to know that she has instead lain here in bed pondering unanswerable questions.

What does it matter if Antoine loves Konstin? Konstin is alive today (fighting a dreadful infection and unconscious and delirious when he is conscious and at death's door, if he is still alive, if his heart has not thudded to a stop in her absence and her stomach churns painfully though there is nothing in it except tea and broth), alive because Antoine pulled him out of a shell crater. And if the fact that Antoine loves him is the reason he is alive, then it can hardly be treasonous.

"I will keep your secret," she whispers, her voice hushed in the silence of the room and neither Konstin nor Antoine can hear her anyway, "I will keep your secret." The words weigh as solemn as a vow on her tongue, and she swallows to hold them close to her. Keep their secret. It is the very least she can do for them.

* * *

 

The words are soft, faint, but each one is one he clings to, and though he is too tired to open his eyes, he knows the voice is his father’s. The words are so much clearer than anyone else’s, the voice low and soft, cool fingertips resting against his cheek. “Oh, my poor, dear Konstantin. The worry you have caused your mother. I do not think she could bear it if…if you were to succumb. For her sake, if for no one else’s, you need to keep fighting. She loves you. She loves you so very much, and she needs you to live.” A sigh, and the pain throbs deep in his stomach for a moment before passing again as the voice continues. “I, well, I was never what I should have been to her. She deserved so much more than what I could give. I hurt her so, so terribly, and I think she was happy for a time until I—until I—well, but she could have been so much happier.” Faintly, the voice a bare breath, “she made me very happy.” A glimmer of hazel iris through the darkness. “You made her so happy. You gave her hope back, after—after me. You gave her a reason to live, and for that alone—for that alone you need to survive now.”

The silence stretches on, and there is only the soft hush of breathing, like water breaking gently on the shoreline. In, and out. And in. And out. And in. And out. A rhythm that feels like silk, the softest thing in the world, until the voice comes again, the low voice of his father. “I wronged her, Christine, and I wronged de Chagny, and I wronged Nadir, my only friend, and, and I wronged you without even knowing about you. I should have been better. I should have tried. If I had only been there…” The voice fades away again, words slipping from his grasp and he is aware of sharp, stinging pain in his leg that makes him whimper, the rustling of fabric. There is something cold pressed to his chest and he shivers, fingers fumbling at his throat. A voice, a different voice, not his father’s, murmurs something far away, but then his father’s voice is drowning it out again. “You can survive, my dear boy, you can. I know it is difficult. I know the pain is so terrible and I wish I could help you, but if you keep fighting…I wish I had fought harder…”

He loses the voice, loses it and can’t find it however he strains his ears. But there is soft Persian that feels like heat on his skin and the heavy sweet fumes of opium. It is so long since he inhaled the heavy fumes of opium. So very long…

His eyes flicker open. The light is misty, filtered and strained and dimly he sees a face, pressed up beside his. A face he knows, though it takes a minute for it to coalesce. Slanted nose, high cheekbones, soft lips that feel like petals pressed to his own—Antoine. Antoine? If he could, if he—if he was able to raise his hand he would trace that face to be certain it is real, not dreamed, not a vision that will dissipate at his very touch, but his—his hand is too heavy, and Antoine’s eyes are closed, his lips slightly parted. Oh, those lips.

“The boy cares for you very much,” a voice murmurs from his other side, and his eyes roll, seek out the source, and he finds a figure in black, a face he can only barely make out with a downcast smile and golden eyes. “We have never been normal, you or I. Never been like anyone else and I—I dare say it is in you to love him too. It is hardly the worst thing either of us has ever done.”

The words linger in his mind, sink into his bones. _In you to love him too. In you to love him. Love him._

 _I do._ Konstin’s lips are too stiff to form the words, and he can only think them, the room fading from view. _I do love him._

And in the space between one breath and another, darkness falls once more.


	19. Head and Heart Pound

She tries to pretend that it is a good sign that Edouard’s fever has vanished, tries to pretend it is a good sign that his skin is no longer burning up. But the moment she realised how much his temperature has dipped (it is now firmly a couple of degrees below normal) a chill crept down her spine. It is not, it is _never_ a good sign with peritonitis for a fever to suddenly drop.

He is so pale, so terribly pale, his skin like ash, tinged with grey. And his pulse, when she presses her fingers into his wrist, is thready, barely perceptible.

She could almost cry, could almost cry with the fact that she came here to avoid Konstin, and instead found Edouard in almost as bad a condition.

(Konstin’s blood pressure has dropped, has dropped so terribly low it is frightening, but his fever has only spiked, has worsened with his weakness, and Amélie’s face was pinched as she whispered all of this, her voice low so that Antoine, sitting beside Konstin, could not hear, could not worry himself even more. He is so weak himself, so exhausted that it must take every fibre of will he has to keep sitting upright. Is he able to sense it, sense the fact that Konstin has only worsened? Sense that he—that he is—that he is slipping away? She hopes not. Oh, she _hopes_ he is oblivious to how ill Konstin has become, how he has worsened in the last few hours. If she could only spare him from knowing that she would. Oh, how she would.)

But she must not cry in front of Edouard, she must not cry. That would only upset him, and it would not do to upset him, not now when he is already so frail.

(Konstin might not survive the night. Even now, even as she sits here, is his heart faltering? Is the terrible, awful strain of his fever causing it to stutter? Have his breaths grown so shallow that they are barely there, only faint occasional gasps? The very thought, the very wondering of it, makes her feel faint.)

As if he senses the fear writhing inside of her, the terrible fear that makes nausea boil in her stomach and shivers wrack her body, Edouard’s fingers twitch in the palm of her hand. She squeezes them gently, to let him know she is here, and prays it might be some comfort to him.

He is so terribly ill, too. The sickly sweet stench of rotting flesh lingers in the air, heavy and seeping in spite of the sharp carbolic acid that has cleaned his surgical wound so many times, in spite of the drains leading out of his stomach, in spite of the dressings. She will never be able to get it out of her nose. It will live there forever, imprinted in the scent receptors. The stench of rot.

(The stench of death.)

She should not be sitting here. She does not belong here. She belongs with Konstin, should be sitting beside him and whispering prayers and trying to lower his fever and begging him to live. He has been like a brother to her, has always been like a brother in spite of the fact that he is supposed to be her cousin, in spite of the fact that he is Antoine’s lover. (Does he and Antoine being lovers make him a sort of brother-in-law?) It is his hand she should be clinging to now, his hand and not Edouard’s, but she cannot bear the sight of Antoine, cannot bear to see him sitting beside Konstin, looking so pale himself, tears trickling silently down his face and his hand wrapped around Konstin’s own whispering to him in Persian. She has never been fluent in Persian, only ever managed to pick up a few small phrases, but she knows the sort of things he must be saying, knows the sort of pleas he must be making, and she cannot bear to hear them in any language.

Edouard’s eyelids flutter, very slightly, and she holds her breath, willing them to open, willing his eyes to appear so she can see them, just once more. And she leans closer to the bed as if that will make him open them, will make him wake, and in the next moment they _do_ flicker open, and her breath catches in her throat so that she makes a soft whimpering noise at the sight of his wonderful green eyes, dulled now with his illness.

For long moments he simply looks at her, his eyes roving over the planes of her face, and she dare not speak, dare not breathe in case the illusion shatters and it turns out she has dreamed him conscious, has dreamed that he is looking at her when he is really still sleeping, is really still lost to the world.

He swallows, and his lips part, his fingers tightening around her own, their grip so weak, the skin so cold, but tightening nonetheless, and she cannot help the whimper that slips from her throat at the feel of his touch.

“So—so beaut—iful. So beautiful.” His voice trembles, the words faint, and she swallows the pang of pain in her heart, swallows the desperation to pull into her arms and hold him, just hold him, and try to force him to cling to life. (He cannot die. It is wrong that he is so weak, wrong that he is so ill. A sin! It is a sin greater than any other that he is suffering like this, a sin greater, a hundred, a thousand times greater than any that Konstin or Antoine may have committed in loving each other. Edouard needs to get well, he _needs_ to, he must pull through.)

His lip twitches, very slightly, and in spite of herself, in spite of every cell in her body screaming at her that it is wrong, that she is not supposed to do such a thing to a patient (but she cannot think of him as a patient, not now, not ever), she leans in and presses her lips, ever so lightly, to his own. He whimpers, and she feels a tear damp against her cheek, though whether it is his or hers she cannot tell, and does it really matter? Does it matter whose tear it is? It is theirs, both of theirs equally. That is all it can be.

She draws back, finds his eyelids have slid shut, and they open again, only half, shining with tears as they regard her. She leans in again, and presses her lips lightly to the corner of his mouth, and this time he sighs, and leans into her.

What can she say? What is there that either of them can say? Nothing. There are no words that fit, no words that could do him justice, that could do justice to the tangled knot of feelings tightening in her chest, so she leans in again, and presses another kiss to the corner of his mouth, to the pale white lips that have reddened now, and one to his cheek, and one to the edge of his eye, his tears salty on her tongue, and one to his forehead. So many kisses, tiny little kisses, and when she is kissing his hair the press of lips to the back of her hand is soft, and she realises, only then, that he is kissing her back.

She feels it, when his grip on her hand slackens, and she pulls back in time to see his eyes roll as the consciousness bleeds from him, and he sinks limply back into the bed. But there are no tears left within her to cry, and her lips are stinging from their kisses. She has never kissed a man before, not like that. Has never peppered a man’s face with kisses and her lips are tender from it, sensitive, like the tenderness in her heart.

Slowly, ever so slowly so as not to disturb him, she lays her head down on the pillow next to his. He does not stir, and she tries not to hear the hoarse edge to his breathing as her own eyes flicker closed though she will not sleep, she cannot sleep, not now. And she tries to think of him as he was, as he must have been, before all of this, before these last terrible days, standing tall and proud next to Konstin. Not as tall as Konstin, because it would be difficult to be as tall as Konstin, but tall nonetheless, his green eyes bright and his fingers elegant but strong, and a suppressed smile lurking about the corners of his mouth, dark hair slicked back.

He must have cut an impressive figure.

What she would not give to have seen him, to have known him, before this.

He swallows, and sighs, breaking in on her thoughts as he whispers, his voice so very faint, fainter than it was, “Three days of…lying on this hillside…have left me very stiff.” She raises herself to look at his face, to see if he has woken again, but his eyes are still closed, his lips parted only a tiny bit, and he does not stir as she lays a hand on his forehead and smooths back a curl of hair. He does not stir, only breathes softly. He must be asleep, must be dreaming of something.

But even as she tries to tell herself that he is dreaming, his words replay in her mind. _Three days of lying on this hillside have left me very stiff._

_Three days._

_Very stiff._

And she cannot help but wonder, the anxiety writhing afresh in her gut, if he somehow knows that he will never walk again.

* * *

 

The tears trickle from the corners of his eyes, and he does not try to stop them. What does it matter if he is crying? He has every right to be crying. No one has said anything (all trying to spare him in his own _delicate condition_ ), but he knows, he _knows_ that there is no good news. He knows there are no signs of improvement in Konstin. He knows it, he does not need them to tell him that. It is plain to see, Konstin’s face paler than ever, his breaths weaker, and his pulse beneath Antoine’s fingertips flutters too fast. There have been surgeons, and nurses, and Marguerite even looked in what seems a long time ago now, and none of them have said a single damn thing to him, have whispered to each over in their own codes that he cannot make sense of.

_…hypotensive…tachycardic…_

What are words like that supposed to mean, anyway? He can see Konstin is not getting better, can see that he has only gotten worse. He does not need big words to tell him that.

(There is a part of him, a small part of him, grateful that there is no clock in this room, grateful that his watch is somewhere that is not in his hand. He does not need to hear the soft ticking of clock hands to know that time is growing short, to know that there can only be so many hours left before something changes, one way or the other.)

Konstin has not spoken at all. It has been so long since he has spoken, so long since he murmured something even indistinct. He simply lies there, drawing panting breaths, his good eye open only the barest slit so that all Antoine can see of it is a glimmer of golden iris. (Does he see ghosts with that barely parted eye? Is Erik sitting here even now, keeping a vigil too? Or Nadir, or Darius, or all three of them? Is that why Konstin has called for them so much, when he was speaking, because he can see them? The questions are unbidden, but they keep coming and coming.)

His lips are so pale, now, faintly tinged blue in a shade that pulls at Antoine’s heart, and he leans in, and kisses Konstin gently at the corner of those lips, and again, and again, each kiss a promise, each kiss a plea, each kiss a declaration. It does not matter who sees! What does it matter? So help him but if Konstin is dying (and he’s not, he can’t be, he’s not allowed no matter what troubled looks are in the glances passed back and forth between surgeons and nurses), if Konstin is dying he’s going to kiss him and let them think what they will! He has seen other men kiss each other, sweet platonic kisses and yes, sometimes there was alcohol involved, but what does that matter? What does anything matter now?

If Konstin is dying, and if it would give him some comfort to be kissed, then so help him but he is going to kiss him. Who could begrudge him a kiss now?

And though his own voice is hoarse, and his own throat is scratchy with all he has spoken, Antoine keeps talking, keeps whispering, even between kisses, the Persian tripping from his tongue to shield the words he needs to say.

“You need to live. You need to hold on, for me, Konstin, for me. I need you. Oh, how I need you. I could not bear it without you, you know that. You’ve always said I’d fall apart without you and I would! I would. I love you too much to—to—”

And he kisses him again, another kiss light to those lips, and one to his cheek and it comes to him, vaguely, a story he heard years ago (a story Konstin told him years ago, as they lay folded in each other’s arms) of the British Admiral Nelson at his death, asking Captain Hardy to kiss him.

_Kiss me, Hardy._

(“I think I should quite like to be kissed like that if I were coming to the end.” “Don’t talk about such things, Konstin.” “Antoine—” “I don’t wish to think about it.”)

_Kiss me._

* * *

 

Christine is not certain what it is that draws her up to his room. The need to be close to him, perhaps. (Though if it were truly the need to be close to him, she would go to the Rue de Rivoli. He always spent more time there, as a child and after, and his room here, in this house, is one which he has only ever infrequently visited, though it is where he stayed when he was last home on leave. _It feels too strange to go to—to the other place,_ he whispered, a faint lingering sadness in his eyes.) Whatever the reason, it is to his room she finds herself wandering, the room where he has spent infrequent visits, the room where he lived in between terms at Saint-Cyr, and where he spent two days in bed after he finally, _finally_ returned from Persia.

(Nadir told her it was the exhaustion that kept him in bed, insisted that Konstin was merely weary from travelling, but there was that cast to his eyes as he said it, that wariness, and she knew, she _knew_ he was keeping something from her, some secret that would worry her, but she tried to tell herself it was only because of his own conflicted feelings about his home country.)

(It was opium. It was the fact of Konstin’s opium _issue_ while he was out there, the one that Antoine had been powerless to help him with and which Konstin only confessed to her months later, when she finally told him about Erik’s morphine addiction. _It made everything easier to bear,_ he whispered, his voice hoarse, and all she could do was pull him into her arms, and try not to think of how much he sounded like his father. _It helps to keep the nightmares at bay,_ whispered to her so long ago, followed by a half-apologetic twist of his lips. _I need it, Christine, I need it._ She is only thankful that she never had to see her son drugged with those fumes, thankful that Antoine, eventually, managed to break him of it before they came home.)

She stands before the door for long stretching minutes, willing herself to open it, willing herself to step back in and see it as he left it, on the day he returned to the Front. She has not been in here since the night before he left, when she sat on the edge of his bed and held his hand as if he were a boy again and not an army officer, not a _Commandant_ , and he promised, his voice faint, that he would come back. _I swear I will come back, Mamma. I swear it._

(And she sat with him, and kissed his hand, and kissed his forehead, and stayed there softly telling him the same stories of his father that she whispered to him when he was small, until he drifted into sleep, his breathing evening out, and it was then and only then that she permitted the tears to slip from her eyes.)

She draws a deep breath to steady herself, and pushes the memory away. There are enough ghosts already without her making more.

The door opens easily beneath her touch, but she does not find the room empty as she expected. Instead she finds Émile, sitting on the edge of the bed, cradling a book in his hands. He raises his eyes when he hears the creaking of the door, and they are red-rimmed and puffy, his face washed out under the light.

“Mamma,” he whispers, the tears shining wet on his cheeks, and it is all she needs to hear, all she needs before she is sitting beside him on the edge of the bed, and drawing him into her arms. And though he is taller than her (only a shade) he leans into her chest as if he were a small boy again, and she rocks him, the tears trickling from her own eyes. “He can’t die, Mamma,” he whispers, his voice thick and muffled, “he can’t die.”

And though she aches to tell him he won’t die, aches to tell him Konstin will live, the words all catch in her throat so that she cannot speak them, and she can only rock him, can only rock him, her heart twisting tight, so tight it is hard to breathe, and pray that somewhere, faraway, Konstin is still breathing.

* * *

 

Whispers in the dark and he cannot hear the words, only a soft shush. He strains his ears, tries to snag the trail of one voice, the most precious voice in the world, but it slips from his fingers, his grasp too weak to hold it. That voice. He would do so many things for that voice. Walk into a hail of bullets if he thought he would protect that voice.

The breath of it is as soft as silk on his lips.

There is light in the distance, faint light glowing softly, and if he tries to reach for it the pain eases. So much pain, and he cannot tell where—which part of him it is in. He is a mass of dull throbbing pain.

A hand squeezes his, the fingers cool and gentle threaded between his own. The voice that goes with that touch he can understand, hears it as clear as ever as it whispers, “The choice is yours, my dear boy. The choice is yours." And there is the impression of tears shining in golden eyes softly lit.

Choice? What choice? What is there for him to choose? To lie here, the pain constantly eating at him? To follow that vague light, and if he looks it it shifts away so that he needs to look again, chase it, and hope that it takes the pain with it?

Mumbled words, faint, the most precious voice in the world breathed against his throat. "I need you" and he tries to answer back, tries to collect the words together _, I need you too,_  but the darkness is too heavy, and it pulls him under again, the light fading from the distance.

* * *

 

“I love you so much, Konstin, so much…”

With his head lying on the pillow next to Konstin’s, Antoine whispers the words straight into his ear, and prays, silently, that he is able to hear them, able to cling to them.

f he thought his words of love could tether Konstin to life, he would whisper every word of love he has stored within him for sixteen years and more, every single one of them, and let them be in French if it would keep him alive. What would it matter, if they all understood? He loves him, he loves him, he loves him, and if that fact alone could keep Konstin alive, then surely nothing else could matter. But his words are not enough, and so much more is needed than any word from the depths of his heart.

He presses his face closer to Konstin’s, so that his lips are brushing his cheek, and his thumb is slow rubbing circles into the back of his hand. “I need you. I need you.”

* * *

 

Marguerite does not know his name. She feels like she should, as if she is doing him some sort of terrible injustice by not knowing it. She knows his rank (Capitaine, like Edouard, and her heart twists painfully at the thought of Edouard but she had to leave him, there were casualties coming in, she had to), knows his wounds (bullet to the left shoulder which travelled down into his chest tearing several blood vessels before lodging in his spine. They plugged the entry wound at the dressing station and sent him immediately on to here, and all the time he was still bleeding inside, growing weaker and weaker), knows he was in a great deal of pain before the first dose of morphine (to be expected), knows he is going to die.

But she does not know his name. And she should know his name. It is only right that she know his name.

She cannot take her hands off him to read it off his chart. One hand is supporting him, keeping him lying on his right side (his own request, hoarsely rasped) and her other hand is rubbing his chest (he murmured that it helped to ease the lingering pain that the morphine was unable to take away), knuckles digging into his breastbone each time his breath falters, reminding him to draw another one. (Why is she reminding him? Dumas has already attended him, given him Extreme Unction. He will slip away in the next minutes, an hour, maybe. His is a hopeless case. Carrière confirmed it with the grave set of his jaw as he examined the x-rays before looking at her with his lips pursed and murmuring, “Nothing to be done. Keep him comfortable.”)

_Nothing to be done._

_Keep him comfortable._

(Will those words be about Konstin next? About Edouard? The loss of even the slightest glimmer of hope? Her heart twists painfully. _Please, God, don’t let them be about either of them. Please._ )

“Is—” The word is so faint she leans closer to hear him, his breath a whisper as he gasps again, “Isa—belle. Isa—”

“Ssshhh.” She is shushing him before she ever thinks about it, bringing her lips close to his ear to be sure he can hear her (will he be able to make sense of her after all of the morphine? The blood loss? The pain?), so close a curl of his hair (dark brown, almost black) brushes her cheek. “Don’t try to speak. You’ll only waste your strength.” _And you have little enough of it already_ , she thinks, privately, and swallows the thought.

He moans, trembling beneath her hands, and in the light from the oil lamp she sees a tear glisten on his cheek. “No. No. Tell—tell her I—I’m sorry. Ssss—sor—ry.” The air whistles in his throat, and Marguerite has to blink back stinging tears, a lump tight in her throat.

“You can tell her yourself when—when they invalid you home.” Her words are soft though the lie is a blatant one, bitter on her lips. It is always better not to tell the patient they are dying. Sometimes they lose hope, and stop fighting, and when they stop fighting—she cannot bear it when they stop fighting.

“T—too kind.” His voice is fainter than a moment before, and is she imagining it? Or can she hear a faint trace of a smile? She must be imagining it, she must be. “Far…too kind.” He coughs, a terrible wet cough that makes him shake against her and she can hear the blood gurgling in his throat. With the hand supporting him she rubs circles into his back, trying to ease his breathing as he coughs and splutters, and she pulls back, enough to see the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.

The coughing and retching stretches on, and Marguerite cannot think when she is trying to help him breathe, trying to force his spasming lungs to expand properly. Coughing and choking and choking and coughing and more blood trickling until at last he swallows and lies limp, gasping weakly. “K—kiss me.” The request is barely more than a breath, and before Marguerite has time to question it she is leaning in, pressing her lips gently, infinitely gently, to his cheek. He whimpers, his throat working convulsively and she sees a tear shining in the corner of his eye before he whispers, “H—hold me.”

Who is she to deny the request of a dying man? What gives her that right? Would it bring him more comfort, for her to wrap her arms around him and hold him, than if she were to keep trying to force him to breathe?

 _Yes._ The voice in her head is resolute, and she nods to himself though he cannot see her, and lowers herself carefully, fully onto the bed. Pressing herself to his back, she wraps her arms around him, one hand splayed over his heart, feeling the fluttering of it within his chest as one heavy-lidded grey eye rolls to regard her.

“Tha—ank you.” His eyes slip closed, and he sighs, a fresh trail of blood running from the corner of his mouth that she wipes away gently with a damp cloth.

“You’re welcome,” she murmurs, and he swallows, gasping once, twice, three times. The silence stretches on, and he does not draw another breath, and it is a mere minute later when the fluttering in his chest ceases.

Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Marguerite moves her hand, presses her fingers into his throat, but try as she may, shift her fingers as she may, she cannot feel the flickering of a pulse. Tears trickle down her cheeks as she leans in, and kisses his cheek gently, one more time. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and the words are not enough, cannot begin to capture the aching heavy in her chest, for him, and for the Isabelle that he so softly asked for, and for Edouard and all of the kisses she gave him earlier. “I’m sorry.”

* * *

 

The hand is soft on his shoulder, shaking him awake. “Commandant. Commandant.” Is it Thibault, calling him, ready with the latest news from the line? No. Not Thibault. A woman’s voice. A woman’s?

His eyes flicker open, and his vision is blurred. It takes a moment for the room to swim into view, and he finds himself with a painful cramp in his back, tight down at the end of his spine. He does not see any woman, sees only the length of a pale arm, his hand curled around someone else’s. Someone else’s hand. Who—

Konstin.

 _Konstin._ It all comes back to him in a rush. Konstin’s blood pressure had dropped so low, his pulse was so faint, each breath so shallow, and the looks passing between the surgeon and the nurse were grave, and his fever would not go down and—and—

Did he die? Is he dead? Is that why she’s waking him now, telling him the awful news? Konstin died while he slept. He let himself doze off and Konstin died because of it. He can’t be dead. He can’t be. He can’t.

The nurse is saying something, words that reach his ears in snatches even as his stomach churns but there is nothing in it to bring up, the muscles all clenching painfully, and he hunches over, groaning, but not because of the pain, not because of the burning pain.

Konstin can’t be dead. He is not allowed to be dead. If Konstin dies then he, Antoine, he is supposed to go with him, supposed to follow him. He cannot live without him, cannot bear to live without him, the very thought makes him ill and besides, Konstin can’t be trusted anywhere on his own, not for very long and not even after death. He’ll hurt himself or something will go wrong or—or—

Keening reaches his ears, distant keening and his throat is so tight it’s difficult to breathe but why does he need to breathe if Konstin is not? What is the point in breathing without Konstin?

The nurse is shushing him, her hands wrapped his arms trying to steady him, but he does not want to be steadied, does not want to. Let him shake here forever, until his own heart stutters to a stop! It has no right to beat if Konstin’s is not, no right--

He needs to see him. He needs to see his face, just once more. They’ll try to pull him away, they’ll cover him up so that he cannot see him, but he _needs_ to see him, needs to see him and kiss him and— and he raises his head, swallows down the bile that burns his throat, and his eyes fall to Konstin’s face, Konstin’s white dead face—

And finds a trace of colour in his cheeks, finds his lips a little less blue than they were, than they should be. He is dead. Dead! Why is there colour in his face?

Antoine’s breath catches in his throat and his fingers scrabble at Konstin’s wrist, bury themselves in that vein that runs from beneath his thumb ( _radial artery,_ a whisper of Konstin’s voice corrects him), expecting to find nothing, expecting only stillness, expecting—

Not expecting to find the fluttering of a pulse. But it is there, definitely there, stronger than it was before and he sets Konstin’s wrist down, raises his hand and presses his fingers into Konstin’s throat, shifting them ever so slightly and—and there it is again, the same pulse. The same real, pounding pulse.

Tears sting his eyes and he gasps, blinks them away and it is now, only now that he is able to see the stir of the chains around Konstin’s neck, able to see the rise and fall of the Saint Anthony and the wedding band where they lie on his chest in time with his breaths, and the nurse’s words reach him at last.

“…all right, Commandant, all right. He’s all right. His fever broke while you slept. He’s rallied..” _Fever broke._ And Antoine can see the faint sheen of sweat on Konstin’s forehead, the soft, slow movement of his good eye beneath the lid.

He is alive. Konstin is alive.

Barely has he time to register the thought, when the room spins, and grey spots dance in front of his vision, and he is falling, falling, falling.

* * *

 

_"Oh, Christine." Cool lips pressed lightly, hesitantly to her own, fingers brushing over her cheek. She sighs and leans into that touch, feels the lips come again, gentle on her forehead. "Oh, my poor darling Christine. How I've missed you so much. How I've regretted that I could not be there for you, to help you."_

_He falls silent, and though she cannot see him in the darkness she reaches out, and her fingers brush the soft silk of a shirt. He always wore silk, always insisted that he look his finest and silk suited him so well, his shirts tailored to perfection._

_A cool hand curls around her own, dwarfing it, cradling it. "Our poor boy will be well now, I promise. He's had such a difficult time, but he fought so bravely." Arms wrap around her, pull her close, and she does not resist, feels the pumping of a heart beneath her ear that she has not felt in so long._

_He nuzzles into her hair. "I am so proud of him, Christine. So proud, of him and of you and—and even of de Chagny, for taking such good care of you both, and for being there when I could not. I love you, so much. And I've always loved you. Rest well now, my darling." And with a sigh, a soft lingering sigh, she feels the arms slip away, and though her heart aches to take them, to cling to them and keep him here, she cannot reach out to find him._


	20. Peace to Close

His eyes flickered open, only for a moment, as she took his hand, then they slipped closed again, and his lips twitched into a faint smile as he murmured, "Mar...guerite," those pale lips barely stirring, and she shushed him gently, and leaned in and kissed his forehead, her lips lingering against his skin.

"Hush, Edouard. You need to save your strength." _Save your strength._ The very words are worn thin from overuse.

He sighed, and leaned into her, and did not speak again. And she tried not to hear the faint rattle in his breath, the hitch of it that remained even when his fingers grew slack in hers. She slipped her arm under his shoulders, and drew him closer to her, tears prickling her eyes.

He has not stirred since, his breaths uneven in her ear, and his temperature is still too low, his whole body too frail, the pulse in his wrist barely perceptible though the one in his neck is stronger. And she knows, deep down she knows, that it can only be a matter of time now.

The thought leaves her numb, leaves a hollow aching beneath her heart. Surely, surely she should feel something other than hollowness? Something other than empty?

A tremor rips through her, and a scream catches in her throat. It's so unfair! How can he be dying like this? Of an infection that nobody could do anything about because he was already so weak, and so ill, and it's going to take him, it's going to take him no matter what she does, no matter how she longs for him and aches for him and needs him—

Why does it have to be him? Why? Oh, God, why?

The tears drip, trickle into his hair as if they are blessing him, as if they might keep him safe from the poison inside of his own body, and she kisses his forehead, again and again and again, his skin so chilled and cold, and prays he can feel it, even in his sleep, prays that he knows he is not alone.

* * *

 It is a long time later – how long, she cannot be certain though her tears have dried – and Edouard is still sleeping, his breaths still hitching, when Marguerite hears footsteps softly beside her. She swallows, and lifts her head, turns just enough to see Amélie standing there, her face pale and drawn.

"I thought you might like to know," she murmurs, "that your cousin, Konstin, his fever has broken."

 _Konstin_. Oh, God, she had forgotten about Konstin, forgotten about him lying at death's door while she sat here beside Edouard, hiding on him and on Antoine both. And she knows she should feel relief to know that his fever is broken, but all she can feel is the same yawning emptiness inside of her.

“His blood pressure is stronger too,” Amélie goes on, her voice still soft as her eyes wander to Edouard, still peacefully sleeping (and a little voice in the back of Marguerite's mind whispers that _unconscious_ might be a better word, and a shudder runs through her), “and his pulse is too, and he has a little colour back. He's sleeping, but Lefevre looked in on him and says that things look favourable.”

 _Things look favourable_. Antoine must be relieved.

"That's good," Marguerite murmurs, and her voice is hoarse from her tears and not having spoken for so long.

Amélie nods, and sighs. "Your brother burst a couple of his stitches, but Lefevre looked him over too and says that it seems to be only the external ones. I gave him a little more morphine and he's peaceful now again." She swallows, and Marguerite barely has time to register the words, _burst a couple of his stitches_ , when she is continuing on again, her eyes focused now on Edouard. "I'll sit with him for you, if—if you want to send a telegram to your aunt or—or to your mother. He might get upset if he—if he wakes and finds you gone."

The tears sting Marguerite's eyes again. Send a telegram to Christine? Of course she should. It would be best, but the thought of leaving Edouard, even for a moment, makes pain stab in her heart.

"I can't leave him, Amélie. I can't."

And Amélie nods again, as if she had expected that reply, her eyes meeting Marguerite's at last. And is Marguerite imagining it? Or is there a faint glimmer of a tear in her eyes? She does not have time to be certain, because next Amélie is speaking again, "In that case, tell me what to say, and I'll send it for you."

And now, now at last, relief does wash over Marguerite, and it is weakening.

* * *

 It comes to him in pieces, fragments. Dense fog pressing in on all sides, thick and white and so heavy he can barely breathe, the world muffled as if it has been turned upside down, as if he is only one of a small band of survivors, the mud sucking at his boots. An impression of a figure at his side, in the distance. A flash of green eyes and a faintly furrowed brow (Dupuis?) asking him a question without the need for words.

Spurt of blood, scarlet and stark against the grey-white.

The burst of a shell, a muffled crash and splatter and tumbling, falling, darkness.

Pain, burning through his leg, his arm, his chest. Lancing sharp each time he opens his eye.

A golden eye, the same as his own, as if he is looking in a mirror but he did not blink and that eye _did_ blink so how could he be looking in a mirror if his eye and that eye are not blinking in unison?

A soft voice, low and curling gentle.  "...my dear boy..."

Brown eyes filled with tears, lips pressed gently to his forehead, his cheek, the corner of his mouth, a hand grasped around his own. Sweet Persian murmured in his ear.

Antoine, Antoine, so long since he's seen Antoine, and perhaps if he reaches out he might find him, his fingers might snag on his coat, and he tries to stretch his arm, tries, but the pain sears sharp up to his shoulder, and he hears a groan, a low groan, feels the rumbling of it in his throat.

Pain. Pain is—is odd. He is certain there was no pain before...

Wounded. Must—must have been wounded.

And at the thought, it is as if all of his nerve endings are on fire, pain burning through every fibre of him, every inch, and there is a faint glimmer of light in the distance, but the dragging darkness washes it away, and there in the darkness there is no pain.

* * *

 “Mar…Mar…” His voice is faint, breaths shallow and gasped, and she shushes him, tries to shush him, but he keeps whimpering, keeps murmuring that same thing over and over again, his eye open only a crack and roving slowly over the room. “Mar…Mar...” He whimpers, a pained low whimper, tears trickling from the corners of his eyes and she wipes them away with her fingertips, as gentle as she can.

“I’m here, Edouard, I’m here,” she keeps her voice soft, and her throat is too tight for her to strengthen it, to be certain that he can hear it through the haze of his delirium. She squeezes his trembling fingers, and kisses his forehead. “I’m here, I’m right here. I’m not going to go anywhere, I promise.”

He groans again, more tears trickling, his lips still forming that one word, “Mar…Mar…” and she wipes away these fresh tears, her heart twisting with sheer helplessness. Why can she not do something to help him settle? (If she could she might give him more morphine, but it is not long since he had a dose, a strong dose, and more now might overwhelm him too much, might weaken his breathing, and his breathing could not stand to be weakened more.) Why can he not tell she is here? Even as she whispers to him and kisses him and squeezes his fingers? Why is his delirium so bad? Why? Why? Why?

She cannot bear it, cannot bear to sit here and press her face close to his, and not be able to do anything to help him. But she could bear it less to be away from him now, could bear it less to be tending to someone else and not here, to be condemned to wonder, and worry, and pray, and she is worrying enough already, her heart pounding with sheer terror so that it is hard for her to draw a full breath seeing him like this, but he keeps whimpering, “Mar…Mar…” over and over again so that it is imprinted in her mind, woven into her bones, and she will never be able to unhear it, never be able to shake it away.

“I’m here,” she whispers, “I’m here” and she keeps whispering it until her voice is hoarse, until she thinks she might never be able to speak another word again, and with one last, drawn out pleading, “Maaaaar...” his eyes flutter closed, and a sigh slips from his lips, and he is silent but for the still-shallow gasps of his breath.

* * *

 He is aware that there should be discomfort beneath his ribs. It was all in the surgeon's face as he felt his stomach, palpated it and squeezed it, the skin stretching and protesting. But the pinch in his arm took all of the discomfort away, and there is only numbness, buzzing gently at the back of his head.

His head is too heavy to lift it off the pillow, but he does not need to lift it now, does not need to move at all, in fact, only to turn his head to the left, and there he can see all that he wishes to see. Konstin, in the other bed, alive and well and easier than he has been in days. And the very thought that Konstin is well, or will be well, that he will wake and talk and live, is so wonderful, so beautiful, that butterflies flutter beneath his navel. It is not nausea, there was plenty of that before, but simply fluttering, slightly giddy, as if once he starts laughing he will never be able to stop.

He must not start laughing though. No, he must not. If he does he might wake Konstin, and Konstin needs to sleep, he knows that now, needs to sleep so that he will get well. And when he does get well they will leave this place, and hug each other, and kiss each other, and just hold on long into the night.

The thought of those nights, the promised nights to come wrapped in each other's arms, is so sweet, so beautiful, that a slow smile spreads across Antoine's lips. He can feel it, and does not try to stop it. Konstin is alive, and he is going to stay that way. What more reason does he need to smile?

* * *

 Edouard’s skin is mottled, faintly purple and clammy to the touch. She rubs her hand up and down his arm trying to encourage the circulation, to bring some heat into it, but what is the point of just warming his arm? His whole body is like that, cold and clammy, and if she thought it might make a difference to him she would climb into the bed beside him, and pull him into her arms, and press herself close so that her own heat would seep into him, would drive that terrible chill from his skin.

But it would be futile, futile when it is not heat he lacks but circulation, and if she pressed herself against him it would not encourage his blood flow closer to his skin, would not improve his colour, and it might hurt him, the movement, might wake him, and he should wake only if he feels ready to wake, and not because he’s gotten jostled in his sleep.

The very moment she thinks of him waking, he whimpers, and a faint furrow appears between his brows. Carefully, slowly, she moves her hand that is rubbing his arm and presses her finger to his lips, and even his lips are cold, colder than they were when she last kissed them only an hour or two ago, and her heart twists but he does not whimper again, does not stir again, only sighs and the furrow smooths away.

She presses her lips gently to his brow, and lays her cheek to his forehead, and sighs, letting her finger slip from his lips down to the chain around his neck. Her Saint Anthony. She gave it to him days ago, and forgot all about it until she saw the silver of the chain glinting between the fingers of his other hand, the hand she has not been holding. And she eased from his grip, and let the little Saint in his capsule dangle before her, but she knew she could not take it back. There would be no point in taking it back, not now. Not when he needs it so badly, and she needs it not at all.

(She needs _him_. Not the Saint Anthony, or the Rosary beads hidden beneath her pillow back in the room she shares, but Edouard, only Edouard, and she whispers it to him softly.)

Her fingers curl around the little capsule, and she kisses Edouard’s forehead, once, twice, three times, soft open-mouthed little kisses, and some part of her hopes that though he is unconsc— _sleeping_ , though he is _sleeping_ , that he might be able to feel her here, might be able to sense her. And she kisses his forehead again, and squeezes the capsule resting high on his chest, and lets her eyes slip closed to hide the tears prickling sore.

But the tears come, they come and they come and slip from the corners to land on his forehead, and she tries to tell herself that they are a blessing for him, tries to tell herself they will keep him safe. But if the Saint Anthony has not kept him safe, and if her—her kisses and all of her tangled mess of feelings have not kept him safe, then what hope can her tears have?

* * *

 It is Anja who answers the door when the knock comes, Anja who rushes back in with a pale face and trembling hands, carrying an envelope, Anja who presses the envelope into Christine’s hand, and Christine knows it is a telegram, and that very knowledge makes her shiver. A telegram. Another telegram.

And she tries not to think, as she eases the envelope open and Raoul looks across at her from his armchair with anxious eyes, that the last telegram brought news of infection and surgery, and the one before that of wounds, and the one before that of the dreadful word _missing_. There is a history of horrors contained in these telegrams, a growing list that makes her head swim, but she draws a deep breath to steady herself, steady the pounding of her heart, as she gently removes the folded slip of paper from inside the envelope.

For long moments she stares at the paper, unable to bring herself to unfold it. What if it should say that he—that Konstin has died? What if that is the secret it contains? That his heart stopped beating sometime in the last few hours? That he shuddered and sighed and ceased to be? The nausea rises burning in her throat and she swallows it down, biting her lip and forcing herself to count, to ten, to twenty, to thirty and forty. From the side of her eye she sees Anja slip out, come back three heartbeats later with Émile following her, his eyes wide in his pale face. The clock ticks on the mantelpiece, each tick deafening. _Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock_ , as if it is counting out the seconds of a life, the seconds of a world in which she can pretend Konstin is well, will be well.

(He cannot be dead. If he were dead she would surely have felt it, would surely have sensed it somehow the moment that he slipped away. And when she has not felt a flicker of something, has not felt her heart falter in time with his, then it must be that he is still alive.)

She swallows to brace herself, and opens the paper.

And tears fill her eyes as she reads the words written there, though they make no sense as they blur on the page and she has to blink rapidly to clear her vision, and she hears a halting gasp from the direction of Raoul, hears him call her name (“Christine? Christine, what is it? What is it? Is he—Did he—”) and then fingers are tugging the paper from her hand and she lets it go, still able to see the words printed before her eyes, the memory of Erik’s voice soft in her ear, _Our poor boy will be well now, I promise._

A murmured “Thank God”, and then Raoul’s arms are wrapping around her, pulling her close, and she feels tears wet in her hair, tears that are not hers, can only be his, and another set of arms wraps around her (Anja) and another (Émile), and now, now at last, the words make sense in her mind, take shape as they ought to.

FEVER BROKEN STOP INFECTION CLEARING STOP RESTING COMFORTABLY FINAL STOP

Raoul’s lips are gentle pressed to her forehead, and Anja giggles into her ear, “He’s going to be all right, Mamma. He’s going to be all right.”

* * *

She would cling to him, would wrap her arms around him and pull him close, and cling to him forever if she could. Cling to him until her arms turned to stone, until her lungs refused to draw breath, until her heart ceased to beat and the tears dried still on the surface of her eyes. Just hold him, and hold him, and hold him, if her arms could keep him safe, if her arms could make him well, if it meant he would open his eyes, and look up at her with that sweet hesitant smile, his lips twitching faintly, and press his fingertips lightly to her cheek. Hold him, and kiss him, and cradle him, and murmur to him, all sorts of promises, all sorts of dreams, of vain hopes.

And he would answer her, his voice low and words gentle. Answer her, and lean into her, and curl his hand around her hip and just hold onto her, just hold on.

And they would be two, two become one statue, holding each other for eternity. And it would be enough, would be more than enough. Just to have him, and hold him, and—and—and love him?

(Does she love him? She must. There can be no other explanation for the aching in her heart, for the tears that burn her eyes, for the coiling in her gut and the way she needs him, needs to be here, needs to hold him (hold his hand). Love him. It can only be love, and she tries to say it, tries to bring the words to her lips but they die, as if he stole her words when he stole her heart, and left it a writhing, twisting, mess inside of her that sends pain shooting through her chest and makes her hunch her back as if that will keep the pain at bay. The pain is preferable to the hollowness, but the pain crowds out all else, constricts her lungs, and it is so hard to breathe, so hard, tears springing to her eyes with the very effort.)

“Marguerite.” The voice is soft from behind her, shatters the mirror of her thoughts, and she raises her head, turns around enough to see Amélie standing there, her eyes heavy and mouth twisted. “Marguerite, I’m sorry. You know I—I wouldn’t ask you to leave him otherwise but—but we need you. We don’t have enough hands, and a shell crashed into a dugout…”

The words fade, cease to matter. All she knows is she has to leave him. She has to get up, and let go of his hand, and walk out of this room, stay away from him for God knows how long and his heart might stop beating while she’s gone! He might stop breathing and if he stops breathing then she needs to be here to rub his chest and make him start again, remind him of the fact that he has to live, he has to, and she cannot do any of that if she is away from him, and her head spins, her breath catching in her throat but she will not faint, she will not, that would be doing him an injustice if she were to faint at the thought of leaving him, and she will not do him an injustice now, she will _not_.

She swallows, and nods, blinking hard against the tears that threaten in her eyes. So help her, but if she has to leave him she will look composed. “All right,” she whispers, her throat tight and aching. “All right.”

* * *

It is the pain in his abdomen which he notices first, the burning, aching pain that makes him gasp. Then he becomes aware of the pain in his legs, left leg worse than the right, as if the muscles have been cramped up too long, are begging him to be moved, and he tries to move his leg but the pain shoots straight into his hip and he stifles a whimper. The left arm is lesser, a deeper throbbing that he can almost ignore, drowned out by the rawness of the rest and he swallows, tries to wriggle the fingers of his right hand, and there is no pain in that arm but when he tries to shift himself to alleviate the pain in his leg, there is a stabbing in his chest which makes his head swim, and he groans.

So much pain. Why—why must there be so much pain?

His eyes flicker open, and though the room is dark (or is it? Is there something wrong with his eyes? It feels as if he has a blind spot, as if half of him has been cut off) though the room is dark what light there is makes his eyes sting and water as if someone (Dupuis) has been cutting onions poorly again only this time his nose does not tingle.

He swallows hard, and blinks rapidly to clear his vision. The room still feels off kilter, still feels as if there is a part of him missing, but his sight is clear enough now that he can tell that it is sparsely furnished, that it—that it rather resembles a hospital room.

Well. He _is_ wounded. It makes sense that it would be a hospital room.

Another groan slips from his aching, dry throat, and he swallows, tries to take some of the cracked feeling away from it. It is not good for his voice, when his throat feels cracked. It makes it difficult to sing.

He pushes the thought away. If he is wounded (and he must be, if the damned persistent throbbing in what feels like every part of him is anything to go by) then it will be a long time until he is able to sing.

There was something about Antoine. The thought rises up and snags in his mind. Something about Antoine, what seems like a long time ago. Antoine with blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Antoine pressing lips to his forehead. Antoine murmuring to him in Persian in words that felt like silk wrapping him. Antoine supposed to be lying beside him. Wasn’t that what someone said, sometime? So long ago? Antoine in the bed beside him?

In the bed. The choice of words—But Antoine couldn’t have been wounded. He will not stand for it if Antoine is wounded!

 _He must be wounded_ , another voice whispers in the back of his mind. _There was blood from his mouth. Obviously he is wounded._

Well. Obviously.

He sighs. If Antoine is supposed to be lying beside him, then he will, will just turn his head and see. And he does just that, slowly, so as not to jar any of the aching parts of him, and his eyes meet a pair of tired brown eyes, shining with a smile.

Antoine. So Antoine is here.

And it is so good to see him, Konstin’s heart throbbing at the very sight of those eyes, at the sight of that soft smile, and his eyes water again though not from the light, his mind struggling for words, for something to say.

But before he can say anything, Antoine is whispering, “It’s good to see you,” and the words seep into Konstin’s chest, make his heart feel so very full, so very tight, and all he can whisper is a simple, faint,

“I missed you.”

The words are not a lie, are the truest thing he’s ever spoken, but Antoine’s eyes water, the tears glistening, and his voice is hoarse as he whispers back, “I missed you too.”

* * *

She was bandaging the broken arm of a man (Carrière had already taken the other arm), when hands reached in from behind her, and took the bandages. “He was asking for you.” The voice was Minette’s, and Marguerite half-turned, enough to see her face as Minette took the roll of bandages fully from her grip, and jerked her head.

Marguerite did not need to ask who he is. There could be only one, and with a nod to Minette she was running, running out of the ward of newly-injured men and down the hallway, and around a corner and down another hallway, the pounding of her heart in her ears all she could hear, drowning out the echo of her running feet, her lungs burning as she ran, and ran, and it felt like a lifetime, felt as if it was stretching and stretching out forever though it could only have been a couple of minutes at most, until she was standing outside the room where Edouard lay with three other officers. The door was open, but there were screens up around Edouard’s bed ( _oh, God, not the screens, please, God, not the screens_ ) and she could not see him, could not see him as she gasped, her chest heaving, struggling to catch her breath. She could not face him dishevelled, could not face him winded, and it took her so long, _so_ _long_ , to gather herself, and brace herself, and smooth her uniform, every second her heart fluttering, whispering that she was wasting _time_ , she needed to go in there _now_ , to see him _now_ …

…and his eyelids flickered, very slightly, as she took his hand, raised his fingertips to her lips, and she could see the faintest glimmer of green iris, only for a second, before he whimpered, his breath half-strangled, and tightened his fingers around hers. And she leaned in, leaned in as close as she could, her lips brushing the shell of his ear and whispered, her voice hoarse, “it’s all right, Edouard, I’m here.” And Dumas could surely hear her, but he did not raise his eyes from the set of black Rosary beads entwined with Edouard’s fingers, his voice softly whispering Latin.

_Salve, Regina_

She kissed Edouard’s forehead, and the corner of his mouth, and the slight dip beneath his eye, and lay her head down on the pillow next to his so that they were cheek-to-cheek, Edouard’s skin so cold,

_Mater misericordiæ_

“I’m here, I’m here and—and I love you, Edouard, I love you.” Her voice was so faint, barely a breath, but the words were ones that could not bear being spoken, that could not survive long in the air alone, so she murmured them into his ear and squeezed his hand as if by that measure alone she could be certain that he heard her. _I hope that you can hear me. I hope that you can feel me._ “And I’m sorry I never told you before, I’m sorry I—I never knew you before and I’m sorry, Edouard, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” The words all caught in her throat, crowded into a tight painful ball so that she could not speak a single one of them, and she squeezed his hand again, his fingers so still, a soft whimper slipping from his throat.

_Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevæ_

Carefully, infinitely carefully, she eased herself onto the narrow bed beside him and wrapped her arms around him, the Saint Anthony around his neck falling against her chest, and he sighed, sighed as she kissed his forehead, and she found herself wondering, as she pressed herself to him, if he was able to feel her.

If he _is_ able to feel her.

What does it matter who sees her holding him? The screens hide them from the world so that it is only Dumas who knows, and Dumas will not say a word, and she needs to hold Edouard, she needs to, so that he knows he is not alone. Better to be held and not alone than to be not alone and not held, and her heart is too full, aching and twisting and making it so hard to breathe so that her own breaths are short even as his are gasped, his blue-tinged lips parted and face grey.

_in hac lacrimarum valle._

She focuses on his breathing, each inhale and exhale drowning out her own thoughts, and if he is still inhaling, still exhaling, then time has not yet stopped, then the world is still turning, and she listens to his breathing as if it is the only thing left in the world, lets it wash over her.

In. And out. And in. And out. And in. And out. And in. And out. And in.

_misericordes oculos ad nos converte_

His breaths are uneven, now, short ones and long ones and pauses in between, staccato notes, each one separate and distinct. And she hangs on those breaths, hardly daring to breathe herself for fear of disturbing them. “Keep breathing,” she whispers, her voice thick with tears though her eyes are dry and why are her eyes dry? They should be watering, should be overflowing, but they remain stubbornly dry as she whispers again, “keep breathing, just keep breathing.”

_Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,_

He gasps, a short gasp, his head shifting on the pillow next to hers, and she feels the arch of his neck, the strain of it as he tries to draw air, her heart catching, faltering to hear him, to see him, and her throat tightens so much that even her pleas for him to _keep breathing_ are choked off and silenced in the pause, the dragging pause, until he sucks in another breath.

_nobis post hoc exsilium ostende._

Now the tears come, stinging her eyes, trickling down into his hair, her lips pressed to his forehead. And she cannot bear to look at his face, at this face she has kissed so many times in these last two days though it feels at once like a lifetime and a moment, stretching on forever and over in a heartbeat. And there is not enough time, not enough time to hold him, not enough time to kiss him, not enough time to whisper to him and to pray and to promise that she will remember him always, every second of her life (how could she forget him? Her heart beats for him now, each beat an echo of his name, _Edouard Dupuis, Edouard Dupuis, Edouard Dupuis_ ), and he draws another breath, his body slack against her, head lolling into her, and she waits for the exhale to come, and waits, and waits.

_O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria._

He sighs, and her fingers are fumbling at his throat, seeking out the fluttering of his pulse, and it is weak, so weak, and her fingers are back at his wrist, pressing in, but there is no pulse there, his blood pressure sunk too low, and when he does not try to take another breath, the seconds stretching on and on, she rubs her knuckles into his breastbone, willing him to breathe, whispering for him to, _breathe, Edouard, breathe, breathe,_ and he half-gasps, her knuckles aching but he does not gasp again, and a hand is catching hers, is stilling it, Dumas’ hand, and he is looking at her with heavy eyes, his lips downcast.

“Marguerite,” (and the thought comes to her, incongruously, that he has never called her Marguerite before, has always called her De Chagny or Mademoiselle), “he’s been through too much, Marguerite. Let him go.”

 _Let him go?_ No! She can’t let him go, she can’t, and the very suggestion is a lance of pain through her heart, sharp and piercing, her own lungs stuttering, but he can’t go, he can’t, not like this, not now, not when they were supposed to have so much more time, and she is distantly aware that she is whispering, whispering words to that effect even as Dumas shakes his head, and she pulls her hand out of his grasp (how long has it been since Edouard took a proper breath? how long? a minute? two minutes? time is gelatinous, she cannot tell) and she gives Edouard’s chest another rub, her stomach churning to see the red bruising she has already left on his ashen skin and it must be hurting him, must be hurting him so terribly for her to rub him like this, especially now when he is already bruised, and she will not hurt him, she cannot, and she lifts her hand away, presses her fingers back into his throat, and the throbbing of his pulse is fainter than it was, almost imperceptible.

“Don’t go, Edouard,” she whispers, “don’t go. Just hang on another moment, another moment,” and his pulse keeps throbbing, faltering and stalling, and throbbing, but he does not start breathing. “Please don’t go, please.” And her own voice is faint, as faint as his pulse. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

And his pulse fades, fades so that she cannot feel it. But has it faded? Or is it just that her fingers are too numb to feel it? (Please let her fingers be too numb to feel it, _please_.) But she searches, and searches, and tries with different fingers, but she cannot find it, cannot, and his body is so limp, and Dumas is looking at her with those sad eyes, his own fingers fumbling against hers at Edouard’s throat but he shakes his head, shakes his head, and a sob tears itself from deep inside of her because his fingers wouldn’t be numb, couldn’t be numb, and if he can’t feel it—if he can’t feel it—

“No,” she whispers. “No no no no no.” And she is kissing Edouard, kissing his temples and his forehead and stroking back his hair, but he does not stir, does not breathe, and the cracks that have been threatening in her heart gape, a chasm opening inside of her, and she can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t feel.


	21. Always Must Remember

_They come to him through the mist, vague intangibilities just beyond the reach of his fingers. The horizon-blue of their uniforms blends away, fades, blood staining the fabric almost black. Mazet's pale hand is pressed to his throat, blood trickling scarlet over the fingers. More blood trickles from Robert's temple, the hole neat and small and his eyes hollow, and Henri sways, his dark eyes blown wide, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, making no effort to hide the hole in his stomach gaping open, as if his body is a bowl holding this soup of entrails._

_And Dupuis, standing in front of them staring blankly. Dupuis, balanced on his left leg (where is his right? Blood drips from the stump). Dupuis, a faint smile twitching his lips as he nods, nods, and the bile rises in Konstin's throat, sweat beading cold on his skin and he tries to close his eyes, tries to block these spectres, but they follow him, follow him, follow him—_

Follow him and his eyes snap open, the room dark, his heart pounding, pounding so hard he thinks it might come through his chest. He gasps, holds his breath as if it might settle the racing of his heart, and distantly he can hear soft breathing from over to his right, slow easy breathing. Who—? Antoine! Antoine is there, and he listens to those breaths, each gentle inhale and exhale, hangs on them until he feels the pounding of his heart settle, slow, and Antoine sighs, as if he might know the terrible images lurking behind Konstin's eyes. But he cannot know, he cannot, and the darkness washes back over Konstin, and Lieutenant Henri smirks.

* * *

 

The memories drift before her, impressions of moments. Arms around her, steadying her, guiding her down the hall. Minette's voice a murmur, "...perhaps some laudanum...", some rumble of Dumas' voice, "...attend to...in your hands..."

Laying her down, hands undressing her, as gentle as if she were a child. Maman? No. Maman is—is not here. Not Maman. Cold rim of a glass pressed to her lips, bitter taste. Sleep tugging at her eyelids, dreamless sleep.

Waking heavy, thoughts thick as soup, throat aching, eyes dusty as sand. Body numb. Heart numb. Hollow as if she has been tunnelled out, as if there is a cave within her.

Falling into sleep again.

The older memories linger, unshakeable. Ashen pale skin, lips tinged blue. Remembered movements in her hands, performed a hundred, a thousand times. Rubbing a breastbone, willing to draw breath. Fingertips seeking, searching, pressing into a soft throat. Easing a pillow from beneath a heavy head, laying the head down. Taking limp hands, cold hands, and folding them over the breastbone she rubbed. (Kissing the hands. She never kissed someone’s hands before, only his. But she kissed the hands and kissed the forehead and kissed the closed eyes and kissed the lips. The chill of it lingers in her own lips, pressed deep into the nerves, always there beneath the surface.)

And there were tears. Tears that streamed down her cheeks, left them rough and sore. Tears that splashed on his face, on his hands, a blessing, a sacrament, and she did not wipe them away, did not kiss them away. If her tears would bring him back she would cry him rivers, oceans, let a world of tears flow from her aching eyes, and damn the sobs catching in her throat, strangling her breath.

The tears do not come, now. But a ball in her throat aches tight at the memory of them, at the knowledge of how they _did_ come. And in the midst of the memories, of the hollowness, of the numbness spreading onwards and onwards into every part of her, fingers and toes, stiffening them.

In the midst of it all there is one clear thought.

_Edouard is dead._

* * *

 

Is it normal for Konstin to sleep so much? It must be. He is after surviving a terrible illness, after all. It is understandable that he needs to sleep to re-build his strength, but Antoine cannot help a flicker of worry each time he looks over to the neighbouring bed. What he would not give for Konstin to open his eyes, and look at him, and smile.

The words from before come back to him. _I missed you._ And tears stung his eyes as he whispered, _I missed you too,_ though missed barely begins to describe the way that he felt, the way he longed for Konstin to look at him and recognise him, the way he longed for Konstin’s touch (still longs, for touch and for the press of lips and to take him in his arms), the way he longed for Konstin to say something other than indecipherable murmurings. He thought he might die, relief making his heart falter, hearing that voice again, knowing he is going to be well.

Missed him? It’s more like he’s burned a hundred times waiting for him to wake.

But though he has woken he still sleeps, still whimpers, lines creasing his face. The whimpers worm their way into Antoine’s mind. Is it nightmares, unspeakable horrors, that he sees each time he closes his eyes? Or is it the pain following him, tormenting him even in his sleep? Nightmares or pain? Pain or nightmares? Or both?

And though Antoine’s own thoughts are still sluggish, still come slow, it dawns on him now, at last, what it is about morphine and Konstin that he has spent so long groping for, and he sees it as if it is now, as if it were not fifteen years ago, the haziness in Konstin’s eyes, smoke drifting before him from a long-stemmed pipe. So long ago, the old addiction, and maybe it would not make a difference now, but he knows, knows because Konstin has confessed it to him, that he sometimes still takes laudanum when he cannot sleep, when his mind is too restless. And Antoine has heard it, whispers of it, about how laudanum and opium can lessen the effects of morphine.

Oh, God. Has Konstin been in pain all of this time? Has he been suffering and he, Antoine, has been oblivious to it? Has pinned it down to the fever and written it off as nothing more?

Oh God. Oh, _God._

Bile rises burning in his throat and he swallows it down. How could he have been so—so _dense_? It is his job to know these things! He is supposed to protect him! And if Konstin has been suffering because he has been remiss in that duty of protecting him, of caring for him—

He clenches his fingers tight in the sheets, and wills himself not to be ill. Now is not the time for him to be ill. He cannot afford the luxury, not until he fixes this and makes certain that Konstin gets more morphine and is not in pain.

Footsteps disrupt his train of thought, and he looks up to see a nurse walking in, not one he has seen before. The one who was here that night, before Konstin’s fever broke, was pale, and had strands of auburn hair slipping out from beneath her hat. This nurse has a darker complexion, her skin a light brown like Maman’s, but there the resemblance ends. She does not smile at him, her features tight as she consults the chart at the foot of Konstin’s bed.

Will he say something to her? Something about the morphine? He should, for Konstin’s sake.

“Could you,” his voice is hoarse, and the nurse looks at him questioningly as he clears his throat, “could you give him some more morphine? A stronger dose? I think—I think he’s still in pain.” It is on the tip of his tongue to say something about the opium use, and the laudanum, but such rumours getting out—no it would not do.

The nurse frowns, purses her lips and looks back at the chart, and then back at Konstin before answering. “I will ask one of the surgeons to look at him, and see what he thinks.”

“Thank you.” His eyes slip closed, and then there are fingers pressing into his wrist, and he opens his eyes to see the nurse looking at him, frowning.

“I will tell your sister you were asking for her.” Marguerite? But—he never said anything about Marguerite. Though now that he thinks about her, it is a long time since he has seen her, since before Konstin’s fever broke. Is she well? Does she know that Konstin is going to live? Before he can ask the nurse, something has flickered in her eyes and she is saying, “She is resting now. She—she has worn herself out with worry. But I think it would be good for her to come see you, yes?”

He is uncertain what to say. He would like to see Marguerite, yes, but it is not like her to wear herself out. She is usually so careful, so good about working hard but still looking after herself. Of course it—it is not exactly something that could be expected to happen, for her brother and cousin both to end up wounded at the same time in the same hospital she is in, but surely she has not exhausted herself on _their_ account

He hopes she has not.

But the nurse is still looking at him, as if she expects an answer, and he nods. “Yes. I—I would like to see her.”

The nurse nods. “Good. I will tell her to stop in when—when she has time. She needs you, more than ever.” There is something this nurse is not telling him, something about Marguerite, and his heart twists. _Oh, God don’t let her be in trouble of any sort._

She turns to go, and he grabs her hand, and squeezes it. “What is your name, mademoiselle?” It seems important that he know, important that he remember, and she squeezes his hand back.

“Minette.”

“Thank you, Minette.” And then her fingers are slipping from his grip, and she is gone, and he sinks back into the bed, worry twisting anew in his heart for Konstin and Marguerite both.

* * *

 

Raoul’s arms are safe around her, and she leans into his chest. He ordered her to go to bed, one of the few times he’s ever ordered her to do anything in their time together, insisting that she need to rest and promising to join her. And perhaps he is right that she needs to rest, but how can she rest when her boy is still so far away from her?

The telegram said that he is recovering, and she is relieved to know that, oh, how she is _relieved_ , but he must be still so weak, so very ill, even though his fever has broken. Perhaps he is in pain, even with all of the morphine they’ve surely given him. Perhaps he is not certain where he is, perhaps he is still fighting nightmares and suffering even though the infection is clearing up.

The thought of him suffering in any way makes her feel ill.

But Erik will be with him, watching over him. He came to her that night (and dream or not she knows it was real, _needs_ it to be real, for him to have been here) and told her that Konstin would be well, and though she is in Raoul’s arms, how she aches to pull Erik close and hold him, just hold him, and thank him for watching over their son.

And if Erik is with him now, still, then surely his suffering cannot be so great.

* * *

 

His leg. There was pain in his leg, pain so bad he could not move it never mind try to stand. Was the bone shattered? He cannot remember, but his leg was wounded and when legs are wounded as badly, as painfully, as his was they, the surgeons, take them off.

His heart pounds at the very thought, a chill shuddering through him. Please God don't let them have taken his leg. They can't have taken his leg. They _can't_.

He tries to move it, tries to wiggle his toes because if he has toes then he must have a leg, and the pain that shoots up into his hip is sharp, leaves the outside of his leg tingling.

Pain is good. Pain is necessary.

(The pain keeps throbbing dully and the thought it is good is not at all a comfort.)

* * *

 

How she manages to keep kneeling, she cannot tell. She is so heavy, every inch of her so heavy that she should not be able to kneel, should not be able to do anything other than lie in bed. But she managed to sit up, managed to walk to here, and now she is managing to kneel. It should be impossible, should be beyond all reason that she is able to stand, to walk, to kneel. How does she have the strength to move at a time like this?

The Rosary beads are warm between her fingers, warm only because of how long she has been holding them. And part of her knows, part of her knows as she holds them, as she smooths her fingers over the beads, that when her mother gave her these beads it was never with the thought that she might need them over—over something like what’s happened with Edouard (over falling in love with a man who’s died).

Her Saint Anthony has never weighed like such a noose. Dumas pressed it into her hand, when he saw her come through the door into the chapel, and his eyes were kind. “I have a feeling it might be yours,” he murmured, and her throat was too tight for her to speak so she only nodded. “If you—if you wish to talk about anything, anything at all, just let me know.” And he curled her fingers around the Saint Anthony, and slipped away, back to the wards, back to someone else lying on the verge of dying, and she swayed with the thought and sank onto the first bench she came to, her fingers fumbling as she fastened the Saint Anthony back around her neck, all the time her mind whispering, _Edouard wore this as he died, Edouard wore this_ and the tears sprang to her eyes but they did not come, not truly, only faded away so that she thought her heart would burst with pain.

Distantly she is aware that she is cold, aware of a draft creeping through the walls, seeping into her bones.  She should be shivering, should be trembling, but the cold is so far away, does not feel as if it is a part of her at all, and all she can be certain of is the beads, still wrapped between her fingers. She grips them a little tighter, and draws a breath, and sighs, and searches through her mind for any wisp of a prayer.

(She would pray the _Salve Regina_ , but the words of it make her stomach churn.)


	22. Coming to Terms

A low whimper slips from Konstin's throat as Marguerite takes his hand, and a frown creases his brow. "You're all right," she murmurs, keeping her voice soft as she squeezes his fingers again, "you're all right, Konstin, I promise. You're all right now." He makes another noise, halfway between a whimper and a sigh, and she casts her mind back to what she read in his chart. Is he entitled to more morphine? No, he got some an hour ago. And it was a stronger dose, but it does not seem to have helped him very much if he is still whimpering.

His fingers twitch in her palm, the movement small, and his eyelids flutter but do not open.

She looks up, over at Antoine, to see if Konstin's disturbance has woken him, and finds him regarding her tiredly with one eye. A faint smile catches his lips when he sees her watching him, and he whispers, his voice thick with sleep, "I think he's settled now."

She looks back down at Konstin, and his breathing is, indeed, a little easier than it was a moment ago, the creases smoothed from his brow. Gently, infinitely gently so as not to jar the bandages on his arm, she sets his hand back down. A soft sigh comes from Antoine's bed, and she knows that he has fallen back to sleep. Good. It is better that they sleep now.

(She does not want Antoine looking at her with those eyes that feel as if they can see all of her secrets. Konstin's gaze can strip her soul bare, but Antoine's goes right to her heart, to the deepest hidden things, would go to—to Edouard, and if he knows about Edouard she will crack. Even now she feels tenuous, as if one strong gust of wind will make her dissipate.) 

She needs to keep her hands busy. Needs to not have to think. And it is a matter of either sleep or work. But in sleep she will see Edouard (and she longs to see Edouard, longs to), but on the ward she will not have to think.

If she sleeps she might never be able to get up again. (It might be a blessing.) But Edouard would want her to work, would want her to help.

And it is as easy as that, really, to make up her mind. And she turns her back and leaves Antoine and Konstin sleeping behind her.

* * *

 

The damp seeps into her bones, and she draws her cloak tighter around herself. It has always been damp down here. It is natural that it would be, being so far underground and with the lake in such close proximity, though part of her wonders if it was this damp when Erik was still living. She does not remember it being so damp. It seems to have worsened with the years, but has it worsened, or is it simply that she is getting old?

Possibly it is both. She is not so terribly old, after all, only fifty-six. Philippe is twenty years older and still sometimes seems like a young man.

Christine sighs, and tightens her fist in the material of her cloak. Time just, seems to be going by so very fast. Sometimes it feels as if it was only yesterday when she first cradled Konstin in her arms, and now he is a grown man of thirty-five and lying wounded in a hospital so many miles away from here. And Anja, her precious tiny little girl, is a young lady, with a suitor who wishes to take her to the opera (Capitaine De Courcy stopped by, and asked her permission, and though Christine could not help feeling a little taken aback, she agreed, on the provision that it not be for a few more weeks. _I think it would be more appropriate to wait until her brother is further out of danger,_ and the Capitaine agreed), and has seen so many terrible things that she should never have to see in her work at the hospital. And Émile, though he is still a boy in so many ways, age being only one, is sixteen and almost a man. When did time start going so fast? Why can she not keep her children as children forever, keep them safe from the world and all it can be?

She was only a year older than Anja when she married Erik. Only a year. And the thought of Anja ever being so close to marriage makes her blood chill.

Tears prickle her eyes and she sighs, tilts her head back and tries to will them away. It is not so very long since Konstin, as a little boy of three, would sit here beside her, and babble on, telling Erik as if he could hear him, as if he might be able to answer, of all the things he had seen, had learnt, chatting about nothing, and she would swallow a ball of tears in her throat and wish Erik could be here, could see his son and talk to him, as if she could conjure him before her simply by wishing hard enough.

But he never appeared. And she knew he could not, knew such things were impossible, but how she longed for him, ached for him, needed him so badly. And she would smile for Konstin, and pretend that there were not tears in her eyes, and tell him that “Papa is very happy that you are telling him your stories,” and he would grin at her, a gap-toothed grin, his golden eyes shining, and she would pretend that it was not killing her to see those eyes.

“Oh, Erik,” she whispers, feeling as if time itself is slipping through her fingers, is bringing him further and further away from her, “oh, Erik.”

* * *

 

His father was here, but he is gone now. That much is obvious even to his heavy eyes. His father, gentle and sad, and if he tries he can almost feel the impression of a hand wrapped around his own, fingertips lightly tracing his cheeks. His father. His father.

Pain, old pain, twists deep in Konstin’s heart, and he has to stifle a whimper. He has spent so long, so long, wishing he could meet his father, wishing he could sit down with him, and talk to him, just once. Such a small thing really, wishing he could meet his father just one time, and he was here, was actually here, but Konstin could not speak.

He casts his mind back, the memories coming slow. A finger pressed to his lips. A whisper of a terrible battle. _…save your strength, my boy. It is a long fight…_

My boy. _My boy._ Tears prickle his eyes. How long, how long has he ached to hear those words? And there were others, too, in that voice, and even now he can hear the tendrils of it. _Dear boy, my son. Konstantin._

No one ever calls him Konstantin, and it is only people who do not know him well who call him Erik, though it is his proper given name. Mamma once told him that she simply found it too painful to refer to him as Erik, which was why she took Konstin from his middle name. To be called anything else is—is strange.

_The pain will not trouble you long, I promise._

But the pain _never goes away,_ simply eases to a duller throb but it is always there, in his leg worst of all, and his stomach, as if his skin is screaming down there. Why can it not just _go away_?

_I’ll stay as long as you want me to._

But Papa is not here _now,_ has gone somewhere else, back to wherever he came from, and Konstin still wants him here, has always wanted him here. His fingers beg to curl around that cool hand, to cling to it and keep it here always.

_I was never what I should have been to her…she made me very happy…you made her so happy_

The three of them, bound together, and that was how it always should have been. Three of them, he and Mamma and Papa, but there was only ever two, and Papa was someone in stories, a memory who was not his that he tried to chase across Europe but he could only ever find whispers of him, and blood-soaked Persian stories older than he was himself, older even than Mamma, as if his father were some phantom wielding a sword (though it was catgut and Nadir was very specific on that point.)

Only ever two instead of three, and it is that thought that makes the pain lance deeper in his chest, and he does not try to stop the tears trickling from the corner of his eye.

* * *

 

The shell exploded behind him, and peppered his back with small pieces of shrapnel. Lefevre examined him before charging Marguerite with removing the shrapnel, and confirmed that the soldier’s spine (and spinal cord) seem to have escaped unscathed. She nodded to hear him, but where once there would have been relief there was only numbness.

She widens each shrapnel-hole with the scalpel, to give herself more room to work, and fishes each small piece out with the tweezers. Blood oozes from the enlarged gaps, but she dare not stitch them in case of infection so she disinfects them with the carbolic solution (and her nose has become so accustomed to the smell that it does not even smart now) and pads the wounds, and bandages them. The padding will soak the blood, the pressure will stop the bleeding, and later, when all of the shrapnel has been removed and he has had time to rest, they will change his dressings, and see what needs to be done before sending him away.

So many little shrapnel-holes… She tries to count them, to work out how many pieces, scraps of metal and wood, are in his body, but she keeps losing track, her thoughts wandering. There are at least fifty, in his back alone, never mind the few that have sliced opened the backs of his legs, his arms, his buttocks (and she has seen so many that she is not embarrassed by having to dig shards of metal out from _there_ , though once upon a time she might have been.)

He will live. Barring some catastrophic infection or the discovery of some previously-unknown internal injury he will live, and will return to the trenches to fight again. There is no doubt of that.

Why could Edouard not have been peppered with shrapnel?

Her hand trembles the moment she thinks of Edouard, and she has to set the scalpel down for fear of doing the soldier beneath her hands some unnecessary injury. Why could Edouard not have had some simple wound, enough to put him out of action for a time, enough for them to meet, but not enough to—not enough to—to kill him?

A painful spasm catches her heart and she whimpers, squeezing her eyes shut, willing away the tears that prickle uncomfortably. And she sees it again, Edouard’s pale face and the slight flicker of his eyelids as she squeezed his hand, and she snaps her eyes back open because she cannot see him now, she cannot, she has work to attend to, she cannot think of Edouard but she can feel his fingertips ghosting over her cheek and she presses her hand to her face as if she could catch his hand again, could keep him here, but feels only her own warm skin, and a sob threatens to tear itself from her throat, but she swallows hard against it, lets her hand fall from her cheek and balls it into a fist.

The soldier is oblivious, dozing with heavy-lidded slightly open eyes thanks to the morphine, and though he is oblivious she whispers a hoarse, “I’ll be back in a minute” as she rises from her chair. She cannot stay here, not now. The room is too small, too cramped, too warm. She’ll faint if she stays here, she will, she knows it, will weep or faint and she needs air, and she has slipped from the room in a moment, past the rows of other wounded men, and finds herself in the hallway.

There is a window to her left, and with trembling hands she undoes the latch, lets it spring open and sticks her head out. The shock of the cool air makes her dizzy, and she sinks back down, her knees buckling beneath her, but before she can fall she feels hands wrapping around her arms, steadying her.

“Marguerite? Marguerite, are you all right?”

She looks up into Amélie’s anxious eyes. All right? How can she be all right? How will she ever be all right again, when her heart aches with every beat and her hands tremble and if she takes one misstep she will fall and fall forever, down into nothing?

None of those words will come to her lips, all feel woefully inadequate. How can Amélie understand? Amélie, with her fiancé and her letters and her wisps of poetry? She does not have this aching emptiness inside of her, does not feel as if one strong wind will blow her away. How could she ever begin to understand?

But every thought catches in her throat, and she merely nods. If Amélie wants her to be all right, then she will be all right.

Amélie bites her lip, and her eyes lose none of their anxiety. “There is a Lieutenant who wishes to speak to you, in Matron’s office. I’ll take care of—of who you were looking after.”

A Lieutenant? She does not know any Lieutenant. Why would anyone want to talk to her?

The tightness in her throat loosens, a very slight bit, and she nods, and steadies herself, and Amélie lets go of her arms. “Thank you.” And her voice is faint, though what Marguerite is thanking her for, she cannot tell.

* * *

 

He pretends to be sleeping, and tries not to listen as the surgeon, a tall man with dark hair, slightly grey, tests the vision in Konstin’s eye. There is a nurse with him, a silent stoic girl, and Antoine smooths his fingers over the sheets of his bed, trying to distract himself from what the surgeon is saying.

There is some sight, that is the good news. The better news is that more might return, but the specific use of _might_ , the fact that it is not certain that more sight will return, makes Antoine’s stomach churn. How can it be that Konstin’s sight is damaged? How it happened is clear enough but why? Why did that happen?

The logical answer is that a shell burst, but the logical answer is not the answer he needs. What he needs to know is _why_? Why did it have to be Konstin? Why did it have to be his eye? Is he not wounded enough without that?

He swallows the questions down. It does not do Konstin any good for him to dwell on such things.

Konstin’s voice is weak answering the surgeons, simple _yes_ or _no_ answers. The surgeon decides to leave the bandage off the eye, and that means he can also leave off the bandage still wrapped around Konstin’s head, and the thought of his being free of some of the bandages is a comfort but not enough of one.

Two sets of footsteps, and the surgeon and the nurse leave, and it is then, and only then, and Antoine opens his eyes, and looks over to the other bed. Konstin does not acknowledge him, only stares ahead at the ceiling, and when Antoine’s vision clears he can see that his hand is clenched in the sheets so that his knuckles are white. His own knuckles ache in sympathy, and he flexes them, but Konstin only sighs, and in the dim light Antoine can see a tear trickle down his cheek. His heart twists painfully but he knows, knows that there is nothing he can say to take the pain away, and watching Konstin’s tears he has never felt so helpless.

* * *

 

The one good thing is that the surgeon, whose name Konstin cannot for the life of him remember, has granted him a stronger dose of morphine. The pain still gnaws at him, deep in his leg, but it has eased from its earlier biting.

His eye is more troubling. Now that Antoine is asleep, he tests it with a knot on the ceiling. He looks at it with both eyes open, and it feels as if the world is unsteady. Then he closes his left eye, the injured eye, and the knot comes into clearer focus. But when he switches eyes, closes his good one and opens the bad one, the knot blurs, the room a mess of jumbled colour, shapes unidentifiable and even Antoine’s face, which he knows better than his own, is distorted. He sighs and closes both eyes, and tries not to think about it.

But he cannot help thinking about it. Fear claws at his heart, in spite of the morphine, in spite of what the surgeon said were “promising signs”. What if the eye just stays that way? If he lost it he could live with it, or learn to live with it. If it came back that would be a blessing. But for it to stay blurry? For him to be constantly off-balance? How could he ever read music?

(Music has never felt so far away.)

He feels faintly nauseous, and takes a breath to try to settle the writhing in his stomach.

Footsteps, clacking on a hardwood floor, and his eyes flicker open again, the bad one and the good, and he sees the shimmering face of a nurse. She smiles at him, and reaching over him takes his right hand, and presses her fingers into his wrist.

“How are you feeling today, Commandant?”

Today. Today. What day is it? How long as she been checking on him? How long has he been lying here, with Antoine in the neighbouring bed? Konstin wracks his brain, but comes up with only fleeting impressions of faces, of pain and probing hands and voices. How long?

“What,” his voice is hoarse, throat scratching and he swallows, and even with his blurred vision sees a frown crease the nurse’s face, “what day—is it?”

Her frown smooths away and she nods, setting his hand down and patting the back of it. “It’s Tuesday. The twenty-fifth of September.”

The twenty-fifth of September? That makes no sense. Surely it is only two days since he and Dupuis and the others were crossing through the fog. How can it be the twenty-fifth?

“How—” He closes his bad eye for to see the nurse better, and her face is sad.

“You’ve been very ill. It is about a week, I think, since you came in with Commandant De Chagny.”

A week? How could he lose a whole week? Time has gotten away from him terribly.

But if it is really the twenty-fifth of September, and it must be because why would the nurse lie, then that means tomorrow—

—tomorrow is Antoine’s birthday.

Does he know? Is he aware of the date? Has he kept track of the days passing?

It will be Antoine’s birthday.

Antoine’s birthday, and they are both in hospital.

He meets the nurse’s eyes with his good one, his heart hollow, and nods. “Thank you, Mademoiselle.”

She smiles gently at him again, and turns to Antoine, and Konstin turns his gaze back up to the knot on the ceiling.

_It could be worse_ , he thinks, and finally, finally the morphine seems to be helping, the pain duller than before and heaviness tugging at his eyelids, _at least we will be together for his birthday_.

And in the space between one thought and the next, he slips away.

* * *

 

The chapel is the one place where she can feel any sort of relief now, as if there is _not_ a noose tightening around her throat. It is the one place where she can think, the one place where they will not disturb her because they know that she needs this, she needs this time here away from everyone and everything else. Out there is full of reminders, and each one is an icy hand squeezing her heart tight, so that it is so hard to breathe, so hard. But in here there are no reminders. There is only her.

She found the Lieutenant in the Matron’s office, as Amélie had promised. He was tall, and he looked at once very old and very young, his face pale and eyes rimmed in red. He stood to greet her, and the very way that he stood made her think he was in a great deal of pain, and he held his hat with trembling hands.

Capitaine Laurent. He came looking for Capitaine Laurent, and she did not know the name. “He was shot in the shoulder,” the Lieutenant said, his voice rough and hoarse, “while trying to save our CO. The—the Matron said he did not survive.”

And something about that combination of words, _shot in the shoulder_ and _did not survive_ , made Marguerite’s heart lurch. Was it the Capitaine? The one with the internal bleeding who reminded her so much of Edouard (and tears prickled her eyes but she fought them back, because this Lieutenant did not need to know about Edouard and would not understand even if he did know)?

“Did he have dark hair?” she asked, her voice faint. “Dark hair and grey eyes? Capitaine Laurent? And was he close to a woman named Isabelle?” And part of her heart said _yes, let it be him_ , and another part said _no, let it be somebody else, some nameless man that you never knew_ , but that part of her heart silenced the moment the Lieutenant nodded, his lips twisting, and she balled her hand into a fist, the nails digging so deep into her palm she was certain it would draw blood, that the blood would trickle from her skin to the floor and the Lieutenant would notice, would see that she is not fit to talk to him.

“Yes.” And his voice trembled with the single word. “He was.”

And Marguerite had never had to do this before, had never had to talk to someone who came looking specifically for one man and her own voice trembled as she whispered, “I’m sorry. He—he lasted only a short time. The bullet tore down into his chest. There was nothing to be done.”

Tears welled up in the Lieutenant’s eyes, and trickled down his cheeks, and he didn’t try to wipe them away, simply let them fall as he sunk back down into his chair. “Tell me about it. Anything you can. She—she will want to know. Did he say anything? Was he in much pain?”

So Marguerite told him, told him about how she had held the Capitaine, and whispered to him, how he had wanted to tell Isabelle that he was sorry, and she tried to soothe him and told him that he could tell her himself, but he knew that he was dying. And she lied and said that he was not in any pain thanks to the morphine, and left out the part where he had asked her to kiss him, and she complied, for fear that it might trouble the Lieutenant to hear it, and said only that she was sorry for him.

And the Lieutenant thanked her for being there, and for telling him, and told her that Isabelle had been the Capitaine’s fiancée. That he was soon due to go on leave and they were planning to marry. And it was those words, those words more than any other, that made Marguerite’s façade crack, and she could fight her own tears no longer, every part of her heart aching for this Isabelle and her Capitaine, and aching for Edouard, and the Lieutenant reached over, his hand gentle as it took hers and he whispered, “I’m sorry for your own loss,” and all she could think was, _is it that obvious?_ _Do I wear it so clearly for even strangers to see?_

The Lieutenant took his leave shortly after that, and apologised for drawing up painful memories for her, and though she now knows the Capitaine’s name she does not know the Lieutenant’s, and it feels as if he might be a ghost, pulled out of some netherworld to come here and torment her. And the tears keep coming and coming, the flood of tears that have felt like a river writhing inside of her, begging to be let out, and she cannot stop them, and does not wish to. And they strangle her breath but they are Edouard’s due, only Edouard’s due.

 


	23. Of Nightmares and Birthdays

_The line of bodies stretches on, silent and still beneath the noonday sun, their blue uniforms stiff. So many faces pale and waxy, so many blood-stained pale hands. He should turn back, should go back, but he needs to know, needs to see. (Please, God, don’t let Antoine be here, please God.)_

_Dupuis is the first face he recognises, has a name for, and his knees almost buckle at the sight of the torn-open uniform, the dark blood staining the undershirt and his slightly-open sightless eyes. Dupuis can’t be dead. He’s not allowed to be dead, it’s impossible!_

_He blesses himself and turns away, nausea twisting in his gut as he stumbles on. There are more faces that he knows, faces he can recognise but not think of the names for, that he has seen in the trenches or on the trains or in the camp. So many faces, and more that he does know, more that makes the nausea twist afresh in his stomach. Mazet, his lined face slack, eyes forever wide as if he was caught by surprise and the hole in his neck gapes. Robert, half his face slashed open, recognisable by the missing top of the index finger on his left hand. (It was an accident with a horse when he was a boy, he said, but it was not enough to keep him from getting conscripted.) Henri, Lieutenant Henri, his dark hair that he always wore slightly longer than regulation (and that Konstin always turned a blind eye to) a cushion for his head, a spot of blood at the corner of his mouth, and his stomach has been opened up, looks like a stylised painting of the inside of a pomegranate. (Bile burns Konstin’s throat, acidic in his mouth, but he swallows it down.) De Courcy. Valentin De Courcy, eyes closed and a hole in his chest, over his heart, looking for all the world like an angel torn down from on high to lie here, a sacrifice to a god oblivious._

_A shell crashes, somewhere to his left, and he stumbles, trips, falls, the ringing in his ears making the world feel as if it is turning around him and it takes him a moment, a long stretching moment, to realise that he is lying on top of Antoine._

_Antoine, lying still and stiff. Antoine, a trail of dry blood down his cheek. Antoine, his eyes staring sightless and blank into the sky and there is screaming, screaming from somewhere, and Konstin’s throat is aching and the tears blur his vision so that he cannot see Antoine, cannot see him—_

* * *

 

He wakes to loud whimpers, shallow, fast breathing, and the rustling of sheets, and though it takes a moment to piece it together, takes him a moment to realise who is whimpering, he looks over to the other bed and finds Konstin tossing.

All sleep, all tiredness, drops from Antoine in a heartbeat, every fibre of him screaming that Konstin needs him, Konstin needs him, and he calls his name ( _Konstin, Konstin_ ), tries to stretch over, to breach the distance between them but the effort of it strains his wound and pain lances deep into his stomach, sweat beading on his forehead as he gasps.

And it is as if Antoine’s own gasp cuts through Konstin’s brain, is all that it takes to rouse him from his nightmare because he stills in the bed, still breathing hard, and his eyes flicker open.

“You’re all right, Konstin. You’re all right.” Antoine’s voice is hoarse with disuse, and the pain beneath his ribs, now subsiding.

“Ant—Antoine.” Konstin’s voice is faint, and its very faintness makes Antoine’s heart twist.

“Ssshhh. I’m here, I’m here. You’re all right.” And how he wishes he could touch him, could leave this bed and take him in his arms and rock him and kiss him and hold him until he settles, until he is able to sleep easily, but dammit he hasn’t the strength to move, and if he moves the pain will get worse and he is no good to Konstin if he is in pain himself, no good.

Konstin turns his head, and Antoine can see the tears welling in his eyes as they flick over his face, and Konstin swallows, his voice faint as he repeats his name again. “Antoine.”

_Was it me you saw wounded in your nightmare?_ The question pops unbidden into Antoine’s mind, catches in his throat, but he dare not ask it in case it brings the nightmare back, in case it makes Konstin suffer more, so he pushes it away and says, fighting to keep his voice steady, “You’re all right now, I promise,” and then, softly, in Persian, “I love you. I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

Konstin’s lip twitches, and a tear slips down his cheek as his eyes close, and in the next moment his breathing has evened into sleep, and Antoine lies back in his own bed, his heart pounding, knowing that sleep will be a long time in coming back to him, and praying, silently, that this time Konstin will not have any nightmares.

* * *

 

She is aware that they are not tasking her with anything strenuous. Nobody has said anything about it, but it is in their side-glances, the way they ask her quietly to do simple things. None of the surgeons ask her to assist with surgery, not Lefevre, not Mabeuf, not even Carrière who has so often asked her to scrub in, even if only to measure a pulse.

Do they all know what happened? Has someone told them, that she made the cardinal mistake of falling in love with a patient, and that he died? Did the rumour of it, of her and Edouard, spread through the nurses and orderlies and surgeons as if by some sort of osmosis, so that nobody will trust her now to do anything remotely taxing?

Or do they simply think she is exhausted, and blame her weariness on Antoine and Konstin’s wounds?

Part of her is grateful. The very thought of facing a surgery now makes her stomach churn, and her fingers well remember the feel of Edouard’s pulse, the way it faltered as Carrière was amputating his leg. She knew then, deep down somewhere inside she felt that falter and it was obvious that he could not live though it looked for all the world like he would. But that part of her that knew kept it a secret from the rest, and even now her heart tries to deny that he is gone, though she has only to wrap her fingers around her Saint Anthony to know, as if some part of the metal capsule remembers the hours it spent lying on his chest.

But she is not helpless. She is not going to faint at the first sight of blood and she has proven that, over and over again, no matter how fragile she feels, how tenuous, as if the strongest thing inside of her now is the numbness that Edouard has left behind, and the fact that they all think she is helpless is so—so frustrating. Damn them! Can they not see that she is more capable than that?

Or are they fixated on Amélie steadying her after she rushed from the ward with the man whose back was peppered with shrapnel? And the way she could not help crying as she left the Lieutenant who enquired after Capitaine Laurent?

Is it because of the leave Matron has decided to give her? The long leave of six weeks back in Paris, that she is to go on in three days’ time? That must be it. Surely that is it. Matron has judged her delicate, and the length of the leave is evidence of that, and this delicacy is what they see, what they fear, as if will make a mess, cause harm, if she is trusted to do anything more exhausting than picking out shrapnel and changing bandages.

And part of her is grateful for the leave, grateful for the chance to escape this place where she cannot settle unless she hides herself in the chapel, where nausea twists in her stomach at the thought of tending to another officer in the room where Edouard breathed his last. That part of her wants to run, as far away as she can. Away from this hospital and its pitying glances, away from Paris where if she stops and listens she can hear the distant roll of guns like thunder, away from France and this war and pretend none of this has happened, pretend she is not Marguerite de Chagny, nurse and daughter of a Comte, pretend that she has not had countless men die under her hands, pretend that Edouard did not take her heart with him. And part of her rebels at the very thought of leaving. This is where she knew him, where she loved him, and kissed him, and prayed for him, and their short time together is bound up in these walls. And part of her wants to curl into a ball, and wish the world away, wish it all away, everything, and have her mother take her in her arms and promise her that she is safe, and all is well, and she has nothing to fear, nothing to grieve over, as if she could be a little girl again.

It would be nice to be a little girl again. When she was a little girl, she dreamt that someday she would simply bump into a man, and in that bump would be a future history unfolding. And sometimes she dreamt that she would meet him at a ball, at the opera, and he would ask her for a dance, and she would recognise him, see him as if she had known him all of her life, and agree.

She never dreamt she would meet him in a hospital, and that he would die in her arms, and leave her adrift forever.

Perhaps they are right to not trust her. She does not even trust herself, now.

* * *

 

“I’ve sent a telegram to Marguerite,” Raoul’s voice is soft, and he groans as he settles into his armchair, “to wish Antoine a happy birthday. I’m sure he feels relieved now that Konstin is recovering.”

_Relieved is likely an understatement,_ Christine thinks but does not say. She has often wondered what it is between them. It is so much more than friendship, so much more even than brotherhood. It is not like anything she has ever seen before, the way they rely on each other, need each other. She first noticed it when they came back from Persia. It was in the way Antoine would glance at Konstin, the slight quirk of Konstin’s lip in return, as if they have learned to each tell what the other is thinking without the need for words.

But she has never asked Konstin about it. If he wanted her to know, he would tell her.

“It’s a pity that he has to spend his birthday in that place.” She does not look up from her knitting. It is another scarf, this time for Guillaume, and it is nearly finished. She has selected a dark shade of blue to draw out his eyes, and perhaps it will keep him warm when he is back on the ship, on those nights when he is not on duty.

She had almost forgotten it is his birthday, and Antoine’s too. The scarf has been lying in her knitting pile for months now, three-quarters finished and then abandoned, forgotten. It was Philippe’s phone call this morning that reminded her, when he called to remind her and Raoul (and Anja and Émile too, of course) to come over in the evening for “a private family get together for Guillaume.”

There was not time to arrange anything before this, not when it was not certain that he would be home on leave, and it would be unseemly anyway, with Antoine and Konstin both lying wounded. It does not seem right, somehow, to be marking the occasion when Antoine cannot be here to celebrate his birthday, but she can understand Sorelli and Philippe’s reasoning.

Guillaume is home, and who knows when he will be home again.

And they have already had one son wounded. It is better to do what they can, now, when they have the opportunity.

“There are a couple of bottles of Bordeaux downstairs,” Raoul says, oblivious to the thoughts tripping through her mind. “Very good stuff, pre-war of course. I think we should bring it over to them, for the occasion that’s in it.”

“That sounds good.”

* * *

 

He wakes slowly, eyelids too heavy to open them, and his thoughts wander slowly over the last few days. Konstin, recovering. Konstin having nightmares, turning to him with tears in his eyes in need of reassurance. Konstin smiling at him, so pale but looking so happy. The image lingers, an impression of a memory that is warm and soft, wrapping Antoine in its embrace.

The first thing he sees when his eyes flicker open is that memory renewed, Konstin pale and smiling at him from the other bed, his eyes twinkling.

“Happy birthday,” he murmurs, and his voice is hoarse, but it is so good to hear that voice, so wonderful, that it takes Antoine a moment to realise what he said, and then he has to struggle to think. It was the sixteenth of September when he was supposed to go back behind the lines, and he found Konstin in the fog the day before that, and it has been so many days, so many long days here in the hospital. It is highly possible that it is his birthday.

“Is it?” He is unable to keep the question from his voice, and Konstin gives a small nod. “How do you know?” If he, who has been conscious for most of this time, has lost track of the days, then how can Konstin who has been mostly either unconscious or delirious know?

A gleam comes into Konstin’s eyes, as clear in his bad eye as in his good one. “I asked a nurse for the date.”

And in spite of everything, in spite of the worry of the last few days and the fear and slight pain lingering in his own wound beneath his ribs, Antoine chuckles. What could be more classically, more typically Konstin, than needing to know the date? Or even, needing to know the date when he has just attained enough lucidity to be aware of his own surroundings, and to remember things from waking to waking? “It’s a long way from how I imagined we might spend it.” They would have been due to go back up the line in a day or two, barring any unforeseen circumstances, and he had intended to spend the day as much as possible with Konstin, taking brandy with him and going for a walk together. For the last handful of months they have been stationed within walking distance of each other, though time and sensibilities have dictated that they could not spend too long together unless they each had a strict military excuse.

For that one day alone, he had planned to delegate as much of his workload as possible to Thibault, attend only to any truly pressing matter himself. But now here he and Konstin are, in neighbouring beds but unable to truly enjoy the day.

He wishes he could be disappointed. But it is difficult to be disappointed when his heart is still singing with relief at the fact that Konstin is going to recover.

Konstin’s voice breaks into his thoughts, and all thoughts fade when faced with that voice now. “I almost think it’s better. I don’t have to worry abou—” he inhales sharply and Antoine feels a slight flicker of worry but before he can say anything Konstin is shaking his head, continuing, “about you getting pulled away to your duties.”

What was that inhale of pain? “Kons—"

And there is a slight edge to Konstin’s words as he says, “Just my ribs. Need to be…a bit more careful.”

Damn right he needs to be more careful. No point in straining himself now when he is still so fragile. “You’d better be.” And Antoine cannot help a slight grin. “I need you with me for the next fifty years.” Fifty years, _at least_. They will be aged old men, stooped and withered and wrinkled, and he will still need Konstin. The alternative is—is simply unthinkable! And he will not think of it, not today.

Konstin grins tiredly. “Don’t say that too loud. People might talk.”

It is on the tip of Antoine’s tongue to say, _let them,_ and on the back of his tongue to follow that with, _I love you_ , but the clacking of footsteps just outside in the hall silences him, and both he and Konstin look towards the door. In a moment, Marguerite appears there, as if summoned by their joint gazes. And for all of the giddiness bubbling inside of Antoine over Konstin, he cannot help but notice how pale and drawn she looks, and worry flickers in his heart at the sight of how worn out she is, and the worry flares deeper when Konstin half rises, and hisses when the movement strains his wounds, his face a grimace.

“Don’t move!” Antoine and Marguerite’s voice blend, and Marguerite is rushing across the room to Konstin’s side, easing him back down with her hands on his shoulders. “You’re not half-healed enough yet to try to move,” she admonishes, and the fear in her voice goes straight to Antoine’s heart.

Konstin’s breaths come heavy, and he stares up her, his eyes wide. “Marguerite? Is—is it really—?”

“Yes. Yes, it really is. And you need to rest. Promise me you will, Konstin, promise.” Under the force of her gaze Konstin nods, and swallows, his breathing a little easier, and Marguerite’s lip twitches slightly. “Good.” She pats him lightly on the hand, and he smiles, and then she moves to Antoine, settling herself on the edge of his bed. His wound twinges at the movement, but only slightly, and he can disregard it in the face of Marguerite.

Up close, he can see how terrible she really looks. The dark circles under her eyes, the new creases at the corners of her mouth that he is certain were never there before, how washed out her skin is, faintly grey. When did she last sleep? When did she last eat? Surely nothing could have happened, nothing worse than what has happened to he and to Konstin. It must be worry over them that has her looking like this, but she has no need to worry over them now, and his voice is low as he asks, “What’s wrong, Marguerite?”.

 She smiles in answer, but it is forced and does not quite reach her eyes, and Antoine feels a check at his heart, a flash of nausea over what could possibly be troubling her, even as she says, “Nothing. Nothing. It’s just been a long few days.” And even as he fears that that is not the whole truth, privately Antoine agrees with her. Long does not begin to describe how the last few days have been, and her eyes are hollow.

But he cannot wonder, cannot worry, not for long, because Marguerite is speaking again. “It’s good to see you both awake. Happy birthday, Antoine.” And she leans in and kisses him gently on the forehead, his heart lurching. For a moment as she pulls back, he thinks he sees tears in her eyes, but in the next moment they are gone, and she is reaching into the pocket of her uniform, withdrawing several envelopes. “I’ve had telegrams for you, from Maman and Papa, and from Guillaume, and from Christine and Raoul.” And now it is his eyes that are watering, and he takes the envelopes from her with trembling hands, and he could swear he hears a slight sniffle from Konstin’s bed as Marguerite whispers, “They are sorry that—that you have to spend your birthday like that.”

His fingers shake as he opens the top envelope, and finds the telegram from Guillaume, and the words written there send a bolt of pain through his chest, an aching longing for his twin. GLAD YOU WILL LIVE STOP DO NOT PULL THIS STUNT AGAIN STOP HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROTHER

The tears blur his vision so that he cannot see the words, and Marguerite is wrapping her arms around him, pulling him close, her hand cupping the nape of his neck, and he can’t breathe, can’t stop the tears, can only gasp and wish for Guillaume, wish to hear him say those words with his deadpan serious voice, and see the tears in his eyes that would go with them. But Guillaume is not here, not here though it is his birthday too, and Marguerite is shushing him, and he can hear Konstin whispering something but what the words are he cannot make out.


	24. Preparations

Amélie sees her getting the shaving things (soap, check, shaving knife, check, facecloth and mirror, check check) from the store, and arches an eyebrow, a knowing twinkle in her eye. “I presume it’s for your brother and cousin.”

“You presume right.”

And Amélie’s lip twitches into a grin. “They’re officers. I’m surprised it took this long for them to want shaving.”

Officers. Officers are always so conscious of their appearance, about being trim and proper. Marguerite had never shaved a man before (had never even seen her father shave, though he always keeps his cheeks smooth, and when she was a girl he had a very tidy moustache, until the grey came into it and he shaved it off.) And in spite of herself, Marguerite feels a slight chuckle rise inside of her. It’s just—just so _typical_ , so normal, almost cliché that Konstin would insist on being shaved before he can return to Paris, and that Antoine would wish to be shaved too. She’s never seen them as officers before, never had to, but it’s such a stereotypical thing for them to desire.

The chuckle bubbles in her throat, and she almost lets it out, almost, but she clamps down the urge hard, biting her lip. If she starts chuckling now, starts laughing over anything, she will not be able to stop. And laughing will turn to weeping and then Amélie will pick her up off the floor and put her to bed, and everyone will see, will have it confirmed for them, that she is walking on a tightrope and chuckling now would be falling and if she falls she will never be able to right herself, will end up cracked into a thousand tiny pieces.

Would Edouard have wanted to be shaved? He never said, but she should have thought of it. His stubble was dark, and she can feel it beneath her fingertips. He was an officer, too. If he had been stronger, surely he would have mentioned it.

If he had been stronger.

So many things would different if he had been stronger, and the laughter caught in her throat dies away, pain lancing deep into her heart, tears prickling her eyes. Her legs are weak, as if they will collapse beneath her, and the smile drops from Amélie’s face, her arms warm wrapping around her, pulling her close. And Marguerite is trembling, trembling against her as Amélie sinks with her to the floor, enfolding her tighter in an embrace.

“Oh, Marguerite.” Her breath is soft against her ear. “Oh, Marguerite, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The shaving things lie forgotten, and there is only Edouard’s pale face behind Marguerite’s eyes.

 

SOME TIME LATER

Marguerite’s fingers are light on Konstin’s cheek, a barely-there pressure, and the movement of the blade over his skin is smooth, as if she has done this hundreds of time.

“We washed your hair when you came in,” her voice is soft, barely a breath in the stillness of the room but loud enough that he can hear it over the slight scraping of the blade. “We would have anyway, but it made it easier to see the head wound. They’ll cut your hair, for you, if you want when you get to Paris.” He is too tired to open his eyes, but makes a noise of agreement in the back of his throat. He doesn’t mind his hair growing out a little bit. In truth, he likes the elegance of how it curls against the nape of his neck, but even with his eyes closed he can picture the face of distaste that Antoine must be making at the very suggestion of cutting it. Antoine has always liked running his fingers through it, likes to twine them with it, and smooth it, and sometimes his fingers get terribly tangled when he is feeling passionate and they have to stop to ease them out. No. Antoine cannot be at all impressed with Marguerite’s mention of cutting his hair.

If Konstin is being truthful with himself, and he is always truthful with himself, he cannot remember the last time he had someone shave him. He has always done it himself, even in the trenches in lulls between strafes. And some of the men certainly thought it peculiar, and Mazet commented on it once or twice, but in general they just accepted it as something he liked. He has never been able to abide having stubbled cheeks.

Dimly, he sees a crack of mirror and a lone golden eye shining back at him. Shells whine through the sky, but they are distant, easily tuned out. They are safe for now. Of course he has time to shave.

* * *

 

Marguerite’s hand stills the moment that Konstin whimpers, and there is a pang of pain in Antoine’s heart hearing it. But there is no blood on Konstin’s cheek, and Marguerite is much too careful to have accidentally nicked his skin even though she still looks so very tired (and he has pretended not to see the red that rimmed her eyes when she came back from getting the shaving things, the way she seemed paler, more trembly, and though he aches, again, to ask her if she is all right, he knows she will not give him a proper answer), and it is only then that Antoine realises he has dozed off.

“He hasn’t been sleeping well,” he whispers, his voice low, the inexplicable need to explain it to Marguerite, to make certain that she does not think Konstin’s whimper is her fault, twisting in his gut. “He has—he has been having too many nightmares. And the morphine isn’t helping him like it should.” They never told her about the opium problem. She was only a girl, and it would have been unseemly to discuss such things within her hearing, and after that there was just—just never any _need_ to talk about it.

Not until now, and perhaps she should know, perhaps she would understand, but the very thought of telling her makes Antoine’s stomach roil.

She nods, and her lip is slightly down-turned but she does not press, does not ask why morphine does not help. Instead she dips the corner of the facecloth into her bowl of water, and washes off the last of the soap from Konstin’s cheeks. “He’s about finished anyway.” Her voice is soft, and she looks as if she is about to say something more, as if she would like to say something more, but she shakes her head. “I’ll shave you, and then I’ll wire Maman and Christine. Knowing that the two of you are heading back to Paris will be a comfort to them.”

_Paris_. It’s still sinking into him, the fact that they are getting sent home. Paris. They are going to put them on the train, and send them to Paris. Surely that can only be a good thing.

(He tries to clamp down on the dark suspicion that they are only being sent on to Paris to free up beds for more casualties. If they are being sent on, it must mean that they are well enough now, that Konstin is strong enough. Antoine will not—he _cannot_ let himself think that there might be any other reason.)

The thought of seeing his parents, of seeing Guillaume, is enough to make his heart flutter.

And of course, Marguerite has been promised her own leave too, and by the look of her she needs it so very badly.

“And you,” he whispers, a smile twitching the corner of his mouth. “You will only be one day later than us.”

She nods, and cleans the edge of the shaving knife, not looking at him. “Yes. Yes I will.”

* * *

 

_There are not enough women, not half enough women, to go around all of the officers for the dancing, and so there is nothing unusual in the fact that he and Antoine have sought refuge in each other’s arms, nothing at all that may possibly be frowned upon when there are so many other officers also waltzing with each other. The frustrating thing is that they cannot lean close to each other, cannot press themselves together though he holds Antoine’s hand up and has an arm wrapped around his waist. He cannot nuzzle into his hair, cannot kiss him though his lips burn to, the longing coursing through every fibre of him and he is grateful for the semi-darkness of the ballroom, lest someone look at him and just know._

_“You are a remarkably good dancer, Commandant Daaé,” Antoine smirks, feigning the high voice of an aristocratic lady, and Konstin would dearly love to kiss that smirk off his face and leave him blinking in bewilderment. “May I enquire, who was your tutor?”_

_And Konstin cannot help the smirk that twitches at his own lips, the slight tightening of his arm around Antoine’s waist. “Why, Commandant De Chagny, I do believe it was your mother.” And he bats his eyelashes. “As you know very well, I have always been most attentive to my studies. Why—”_

_“Konstin.” Antoine’s smile has transformed into a grin, and he presses himself ever so slightly against Konstin, just a little closer than is really decent._

_“Yes, Antoine?”_

_“Shut up.”_

_And, oh, but if he could kiss him! If he could kiss him here and now and damn them all with their prying eyes. And Antoine’s eyes flash, his lips parted ever so slightly, as if he is thinking the same thing._

_He steps back, enough to bring them back into the bounds of decency, and the stroking of Antoine’s thumb over his knuckles is a soft promise of_ later.

* * *

 

Invalided back to Paris. The words are a blessing, a benediction. Konstin is getting sent home, sent home! To where she can see him, and touch him, and talk to him, and know truly how he is, and know that he is safe. To think of him being back in Paris! It does not feel real. She is dreaming. She must be dreaming. It is almost too good to be true and if it is too good to be true then that means it is not true.

But the words are written there in the telegram for her to see. Konstin and Antoine, both getting invalided back to Paris, due to arrive by train tomorrow evening. They will likely be brought to the Grand Palais, where Anja and Émile and Sorelli are all working. Oh, but it will be good to have them so close, and the relief at knowing they are going to be here is dizzying.

Raoul grins to see her smiling when she opens the telegram, and takes it from her, and when he reads what is written there he enfolds her in his arms and swings her, and she is laughing, laughing in a way she has not laughed in years, and Raoul is laughing too and when he sets her down he kisses her, and for the first time in these long sorry weeks, she feels as if everything might be all right after all.

* * *

 

Several of these men only came in last night, or early this morning, and already they are being moved on, as much out of necessity for the space as their being fit to be moved. Just because they are leaving here, it does not yet mean that they are going to survive.

But Antoine and Konstin will survive, now. They do not fall into that category of being questionable, not anymore, and will not unless some terrible catastrophe befalls them, unless some complication develops against all odds. They will live, and that thought alone permeates through the haze of Marguerite’s mind, eases the ache in her heart.

(The ache lingers, cannot fully dissipate.)

She has already checked Konstin’s bandages, ensured they are secure enough that they will not come undone while he is being moved, and she has given him more morphine, for the journey, though she knows by the way Antoine watched her that it may not be enough. And Konstin lies there on his stretcher on the ground, his eyes heavy-lidded and a vague lopsided grin on his face even as she checks Antoine’s dressing, and finds it secure.

They will travel in the same ambulance. She has managed to ensure that much, and hopes that it will be enough to keep them together in the train.

Two orderlies come, Anatole whose blood was incompatible so long ago with Konstin’s, and Hubert, a man who never smiles, his lips perpetually turned down at the edges. She has often wondered about him, wondered what it is was that left him so dour, but she thinks now, watching him as he positions himself at the head of Antoine’s stretcher, Anatole at the feet, that she can almost understand.

How is it possible for anyone to be able to smile now?

Antoine catches her hand as they carry him past her, and squeezes it, a mass of questions in his eyes. “Be good,” he murmurs, his gaze boring into her, and she nods, and Konstin coughs and whispers, half-slurring as two more orderlies take his stretcher and lift it, “be safe.”

Antoine’s hand slips from her fingers, and she nods. “I will. And I’ll see you both in Paris soon enough.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

And then her brother is past her, almost at the ambulance door, and Konstin’s stretcher is at her side, and she pats him gently on the shoulder. “Don’t tax yourself,” and the warning is barely out of her mouth when he is nodding, his head lolling.

“I’ll behave.”

And they are sliding him into the ambulance too, and closing the door behind him. The engine rattles slightly as it starts up, and though neither Antoine nor Konstin can see her, she stands and watches as the ambulance drives down the lane, around the bend, and out of sight.

The realisation hits her all at once, hollowness crushing into her again. There is nothing left for her here, nothing tethering her to this place only the memory of Edouard, and her legs ache, demand movement so she walks, walks without thinking where her feet are carrying her, without wondering if they will miss her back at the hospital, her mind too full of Antoine, of the questions in his eyes, of Konstin’s lopsided smile and drooping eyes. They have each other, will take care of each other on the way to Paris and neither of them will be alone, or lost, or worrying or upset, because they will be together. They are in touching distance of each other, Antoine able to reach and take Konstin’s hand and vice versa, and they can hold hands in the darkness safe from the eyes of everyone, and will not have to wonder if it is all just some terrible dream.

She is not certain that Edouard was not a dream, that she did not conjure him out of her own desperation, her own heartache. Her heart is full of him but he is an intangibility, nothing solid that she can cling to only a fistful of memories, impressions of kisses on her lips. How can she know that she did not dream him, did not invent him?

Of course she did not invent him. The very idea is nonsensical. If she had invented him then surely, surely she would not feel as if the ground is constantly about to open up beneath her feet, as if one misstep will send her falling into an abyss for all eternity. Edouard existed. He lived, he breathed, he _was_. And she did hold him, she did kiss him, she did touch him and just because he is gone where she cannot reach him now it does not mean that he never was.

His lips were real beneath her own. And the pulse throbbing in his wrist was real beneath her fingertips, until it ceased to be real, ceased to be.

He had a life. And maybe it was not a very long life. Maybe it could have been (should have been) so much longer, held so much more. But it was a life, and its briefness, its ending, does not make it any less valid.

Her throat tightens, and a slight breeze catches her face so that she feels the chill of it, realises that her cheeks are wet. He had a life, and it was valid, and yes she did not know him for very long at all, never saw him at his best, but this pain twisting in her heart is valid, this aching for him, to see him once more, this emptiness inside of her where he was for so short a time. It was all real. It all matters, and a sob catches her, makes her knees buckle, and she is hitting the ground, the dirt soft beneath her knees, and she does not throw her hands out to catch herself, does not try to break her fall, simply sways and tilts and she is lying on the earth beneath the trees, her arms wrapped tight around herself, the dappled shadows blurred with her tears. And she cries, cries for Edouard and cries for herself, and cries for what was and what will never be, and the tears keep coming, keep coming and coming, rolling from the edges of her eyes to land in the soil, the world hanging still as if it has ceased to turn without him.


	25. Flashes of Moments

There is no light in the ambulance, but Antoine cannot bring himself to care. He does not need light to know that Konstin is here, that Konstin is safe beside him. It is enough to listen to his easy breathing, to feel the soft twitching of his fingers cradled safe in Antoine’s hand. “I love you,” he murmurs into the darkness, the words he has been unable to speak all of this time, too many eyes watching them, too many ears listening and so he shrouded them in Persian, but now they are alone, and together, no one to notice or care, and so he says them properly, rolling them softly in their own French, _je t’aime_. “I love you.” And Konstin cannot hear because he is soundly asleep, but it does not matter. Perhaps the words will permeate his dreams, and keep them peaceful.

Antoine can only hope, and he manoeuvres himself, raises himself slightly against the rocking of the ambulance and bowing his head raises Konstin’s hand, and presses his lips gently to his knuckles. “I love you.”

And he sinks back down to his own stretcher, and closes his eyes, and lets his mind wander, aware, all of the time, of Konstin’s soft breathing beside him.

 

The transfer from ambulance to train rouses Antoine from his doze. (He was full of visions of dancing with Konstin, that long body pressed close to him, of pressing soft kisses to Konstin’s chest, laying his head down and listening to his heart, memories of holding each other beneath a mound of blankets and the the tenderness in Konstin’s eyes as he looked at him, and kissed him gently on the mouth, and of that one time when they both got obscenely drunk and dressed up as women, each wearing dresses and though the dress was too short for Konstin, with his hair fluffed up and rouge applied to lips and cheeks he made a beautiful woman.)

Thankfully, they are loaded into the same berth in the train. Antoine has a top bunk, and Konstin is in the bunk beneath him, and there are two lieutenants, only semi-conscious (one with a head wound, the other, presumably, due to morphine) loaded into the remaining two bunks. Antoine is grateful that they are not talkative. Best that they stay quiet, and not wake Konstin. He needs sleep too badly to be woken by chatter, and Antoine prays that he will stay asleep, and that the motion of the train will keep the nightmares at bay. Anything, now, that might help him is a blessing.

It takes a long time to load the train, and Antoine dozes in the interim, never quite sleeping. The darkness is too oppressive, feels too much as if the walls are closing in on him. He has managed to sleep in dug-outs smaller than this, but there is something about the confines of the berth that makes the hairs prickle on his arms. The thought comes, incongruous, that he would never have coped if he and Guillaume’s roles had been reversed, if he had gone into the Navy instead. The narrow tightness of a ship’s quarters would leave his heart constantly pounding. At least when he is belowground in the trenches he is still on solid land.

The train groans, and slowly chugs to life. At least they are on the move, and will soon be in Paris, and he will be out of this berth and in a proper room, with actual space and not just the illusion of space. Will he be alone? Or will they put Konstin in with him again? Two Commandants arriving in together, they are unlikely to put them in with officers of lower rank, and certainly not with enlisted men.

Please, God, let them be in a room together. Just the two of them, alone from everyone else and safe. That would be best. And he could not bear to be away from Konstin now.

* * *

 

Though she is relieved that Konstin is recovered enough to be transferred back here to Paris (and relieved over Antoine too, of course) she cannot help the anxiety twisting in her stomach at the thought of seeing them. All along, she has longed to see Konstin, to be beside him and reassure him (and reassure herself), and promise him that he would be all right. Even to sing to him. Singing to him always soothed him when he was a boy, and it helped to ensure a peaceful night of sleep. Would it help him now? If she were to sing to him?

(It always helped Erik. When he was ill she would hold him, and sing to him, and he would nuzzle into her and drift into sleep.)

But though she longed to be with him all along, now she is not so certain. She needs to be strong for him, needs to be able to take in all of his dreadful wounds and not weep at how he has suffered, not burn to go to the lines herself and take on that other army of men who have done this to him, who have so damaged him. He needs her to be strong, but how can she be strong thinking of what they have done to him? Thinking of weak he still is? How terribly close she came to losing him?

The very thought of seeing him, of facing how badly wounded he is, makes bile rise in her throat.

But she needs to see him, needs to hold his hand and know that he is alive, that he will live, and she is torn between the part of her that wants to run away, and the part of her that needs to be with him and never leave him.

Tomorrow evening. He will be here tomorrow evening, and they will unload him from the train and bring him to the hospital and settle him into a room (and she hopes he will be with Antoine, because ill as he is he will be unsettled and Antoine has always been able to ease him), and Anja has warned her that she needs to wait until the next morning to see him, that they will be busy settling him in and examining him. But Christine is not surprised that she will have to wait. The waiting is only a minor issue, and she has been waiting to see him for so long now. What are a few hours more?

* * *

 

_Shells screeching overhead, crash in the distance, but he cannot worry about who they are crashing on so long as they are not crashing on them. Let them be falling on empty trenches, or choking off in No Man’s Land._

_His fingers are numb with cold. His pulled his gloves off when they got too stiff to work and he presses them deeper into Lieutenant Henri’s stomach, a weak groan coming from Henri’s throat. The blood wells up around his fingers, leaks out between them, but he dare not take them away, he dare not._

_Henri’s head is heavy on his shoulder and he leans in so that his lips are against the rim of his ear and whispers, praying the man in his arms can hear him, “The stretcher-bearers are coming, Henri.” (Why does he not know his first name? He should know his first name.) “Just hold on, hold on.”_

_Dupuis’ eyes meet his, edges of his lips creased with worry. “His pulse is very weak, sir,” and then Dupuis’ hands are pressing into Henri’s stomach over Konstin’s, and his voice is lighter as he whispers, looking down into Henri’s eyes, “Hold on, Antoine, just hold on.”_

_Antoine? Is his name Antoine? Konstin’s heart stalls, and the world seems to fall away. Antoine? Antoine? Tears sting his eyes. Antoine?_

_He looks down, down into Henri’s dark eyes, flickering sightlessly, and forces a smile that feels unnatural on his face, feels unnatural when there is blood still welling up between his fingers, when Henri is gasping the single name, “Clara, Clara,” over and over again, and Konstin whispers, his voice faint, “Keep fighting, Antoine, you’re doing so well,” and the name_ Antoine _has never weighed so wrong on his tongue._

_Blood gurgles from Henri’s lips, trickles from the corner of his mouth, and Konstin eases one hand out from under Dupuis’, tries to wipe it away but only smears it, and a tear drips onto Henri’s forehead, and another one, but Konstin dares not wipe that away, dares not mar his forehead with blood. He searches at his throat instead, finds the thready pulse and wills it to keep going, wills his heart to keep beating, but even as he wills it the pulse is fading, and a peculiar little gasp comes from Henri’s lips, almost a choking sound, and then his head is lolling, lolling, and it is all Konstin can do to prop him up, Dupuis still pressing into his stomach, whispering, “Come on, Antoine, for Clara, and for your little girl, and for the baby, come on,” and another shell crashes, closer than before, and Henri sighs, his eyes rolling, the pulse gone from his throat, and he gasps, one more faint “Clara,” and sinks silent and heavy into Konstin’s arms._

_A sob catches in Konstin’s own throat, and he is shaking Henri, shaking him, and Dupuis’ hands are wrapping tight around his, stilling them. “He’s gone, sir, he’s gone, let him be” and Konstin hears his own voice whispering, “he can’t be, he can’t, he can’t,” though he does not feel his lips say the words, and then hands are pulling him away, pulling Henri out of his arms, laying him on the stretcher that has come too late, “carry him out,” he whispers, “carry him out, don’t let him be buried here, carry him out,” and the colour is draining from the world, Dupuis’ green eyes the clearest thing, “you need to move, sir, you need to move, the shelling is getting closer,” and hands are pulling him to his feet, but he can’t move, he can’t, not when Henri is dead, when Henri is leaving a widow behind, a baby, and he sees a flash of his own mother, her face pale and eyes rimmed in red, and his stomach heaves so that he is doubled over retching but there is nothing to bring up, nothing._

* * *

 

It is the helplessness that is the worst, the sheer aching helplessness. How he wishes he could do something, wishes he could take Konstin in his arms and whisper to him and promise him that he is all right now, that they are all right now, but he cannot move from his own bunk, and if he could there are the two lieutenants to consider, and so he is condemned to lie here, to simply lie here, and listen to Konstin’s whimpers, each whimper a lance of pain in to his heart.

What is it that he sees? What is it that makes him whimper so?

A part of Antoine burns to know, burns to know so he can tell him that it is nothing, that it is behind him, that it cannot touch him, but if it is the lines, as he suspects (knows) it is—how could he ever lie and promise Konstin that the lines are behind them when they will likely be back there? Will have to face it all again? When it is not what has happened to him but what has happened to the others? The things he has seen, and done?

And Antoine would lie, for so many things he would lie and wrap Konstin in half-truths and fantasies, but the Front—

He cannot lie when both of them would know it as blatant.

There is nothing he can do, nothing, and he would dearly love to hit something, the longing to sink his fists into the wall surging in his chest, but it would create a disturbance and maybe make them move him and even if he cannot pull Konstin into his arms he will not leave him, not now.

So he swallows the urge to curse, and punch, and bites his tongue, and lies there and tries not to hear the whimpers, tries to draw the words of every old Persian poem out of his memory, and whisper them into the darkness.

* * *

 

_Crash of a shell. Clay flying, falling, burying him, heavy on his chest and it is so hard to breathe so hard so hard the darkness pressing in on him and he cannot move, cannot escape, cannot dig his way out and his heart is racing, pounding, his lungs burning, demanding air_

and his eyes snap open to darkness, a faint slice of light lancing through it though the roof above him is so close it is pressing in and the wall is too close, the space too narrow, and a chill makes him shiver because everything is too close, too small, too tight and he can’t breathe—can’t breathe—

“You’re all right, Konstin.” Antoine’s voice, somewhere above him, speaking Persian. “You’re all right now, I promise. Just breathe. Deep breaths. In, and hold it, and out. It will help. Just deep breaths.” And it is Antoine’s voice, and he is bound to obey Antoine’s voice, bound to follow, and he sucks in a deep breath, as deep as he can, his ribs protesting sharply, and holds it, counts to seven, and lets it out slowly. His heart is already beating a little easier, the tightness in his chest looser, and from above Antoine’s voice comes again. “Good, Konstin. And another one.” And he draws another breath, and holds it, his eyes slipping closed, and with Antoine’s voice coming softly from above him he is able to breathe his way through the darkness

* * *

 

She has little enough that she wishes to bring to Paris, little enough here to her name. A book or two. A bundle of letters carefully tied together. The few clothes that are not her uniform. She fits them all neatly into a bag, and fastens it closed. For now she is wearing her uniform, and she cannot change out of it until she gets off the train. Until then she is, still, on duty.

Minette and Amélie are waiting for her, and they each hug her before she leaves the room they’ve shared. She should thank them, thank them for all of the help they’ve given her, for how kind they’ve been with—with everything. But the moment she tries to thank them she thinks of Edouard, and her throat tightens and there are no words able to escape. Minette sees the look that must cross her face, and hugs her again, and whispers, “He’s at peace now,” and when she pulls back her brown eyes are heavy and Marguerite’s heart lurches.

Amélie’s hand is gentle rubbing her arm, a steadying weight. “Don’t worry about us. Just take care of yourself,” and there are tears in her eyes too, and none of them say much of anything. “We’ll write you, and you’ll write us.”

And looking at them both, and the way they are looking at her, Marguerite cannot help feeling as if it is a permanent departure, and not simply a long leave. But something in the world has changed, and she is not the girl she was when she came here, none of them are, and maybe that is why she feels so unsteady at the thought of leaving them both behind her, if only for a time.

* * *

 

The train is slowing down, its rhythmic chugging easing, and Antoine sighs. It must be a sign that they are near Paris, that they do not have much further to go, and the thoughts of being in Paris, of being off this bunk and out of this berth, of the air on his face, of seeing Guillaume, and Maman and Father, of being away from these lieutenants and (maybe) sharing a room with only Konstin who has been quiet now for hours, no whimpers or groans, those thoughts wash over him, and the lightness in his heart is blissful.

* * *

 

_“Had we but world enough, and time,” Antoine’s breath is warm against Konstin’s throat, makes the hairs on the back of his neck twitch, and he shudders, Antoine’s fingers trailing lightly over his inner thigh. “This coyness, Lady, were no crime.”_

_It crosses Konstin’s mind to say,_ I’m far from a Lady, Milord, _but Antoine is continuing on, nuzzling into his collarbone and murmuring, “We would sit down and think which way,” a kiss and Konstin sighs, his eyes fluttering closed and Antoine smiles into his chest, “To walk and pass our long love's day.”_

_“I love it when you get all poetic on me,” Konstin whispers, his fingers toying at Antoine’s earlobe, eyes opening to regard his mussed hair golden in the lamplight. “And quite literally on me too which is even more impressive. I always appreciate having literary lines breathed into my skin, as you well know. It adds a certain level of decency to the thing which is can be distinctly lacking, not to mention the delightful cultural addition…” He is rambling, definitely rambling. The Bordeaux is surely to blame and not the way—ahhhhh, not the way Antoine is whispering against his nipple, his fingers stroking the trail of hair beneath Konstin’s navel, and it is so distracting, so distracting, what was he thinking about again? Poetry, literature, Marvell and time’s wingéd chariot but that comes later, later, hurrying near._

_“A hundred years should go to praise,” and Antoine is grinning into his face again, his lips kiss-swollen and beautiful, “Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze,” and three kisses pressed to his forehead, “Two hundred to adore each breast, but thirty thousand to the rest,” and his voice drops, snagging something in Konstin’s heart and he whimpers as Antoine continues on, murmuring softly against the corner of his mouth, “An age at least to every part,” and the movement of his lips against the edge of Konstin’s is maddening, maddening, makes Konstin groan, “And the last age should show your heart.” And Konstin has enough, more than enough, and he turns his head and captures those maddening lips with his own._


	26. End of the Line

Hands. Hands touching him, laying him down. Fingers pressing into his wrist. The scratch of a pen on paper. Murmured voices. A slight pinch in the crook of his elbow. The uncomfortable feeling of something cold flowing into his blood, conjuring the image of a dissipating spurt of blood in water.

The hands disappear, voices silence, and there is only the sound of his own breathing, soft, and the echo of the pounding of his heart, so very far away.

He drifts, drifts a long time, as if he is lying in the bottom of a canoe floating downstream. The sky black as ink overhead, speckled with shining stars, the sides of the canoe a protection from the faint breeze, the night air balmy. And there is only he, and Antoine curled up beside him, tucked in as close as he can get, sighing softly in his sleep, his delicate fingers splayed protectively over Konstin’s heart. Just the rippling water, and this, and them, alone and together, and infinitely slowly so as not to wake him, Konstin takes that hand, and raises it to his lips. “I love you,” he breathes, “I love you.”

Hands return, pulling sheets, and the canoe fades, Antoine’s warm body fades, and there is only the distant brush of cotton against his chin. Why are there so many hands? And though his eyes protest they open, the light stinging them and he blinks, an unfamiliar colourful room swimming into view. Greens, blues, yellows, oranges, all adorning the wall, and his head aches with such brightness, forces him to close his eyes again but not before catching sight of a woman hovering at his side.

“Do you want anything, Commandant Daaé?” Her voice is soft, but still it is much too loud, grating on his ears, his head pounding and he groans. Her hand is chilled against his skin, and he shivers.

Antoine. He wants Antoine. Is he here? Where is he? He is supposed to be here.

But—the nurse will not know him as Antoine. How is he supposed to ask for him again?

His thoughts are too slow, like thick soup and not the watery broth sometimes served to the men. Antoine’s name, his name…

“De Chagny.” Speaking makes his throat ache, and he almost whimpers with the pain lancing through his head. Too many De Chagny’s. It is always better to use his rank to be certain. “Where—Comman—dant De Chagny?”

“De Chagny?” The nurse’s voice is farther away than it was before. “He is in the room next door, sleeping.”

Next door? So far away, and Konstin feels a pang of hollowness in his chest as he nods. The next room? Why the next room? Is there not room in this one? Why can he not see him? All he wanted was to see him.

* * *

 

She walks slowly through each compartment, looking in on the wounded men in each berth. Most of them are sleeping, comfortable with the morphine in their blood, though one or two of them (and she feels a check at her heart when she notices) who are not long after coming down the line, are running low fevers. She resolves to monitor them, and do what little she can. There will be no taking them off the train until they reach Paris.

She finds, as she tightens a dressing that has come loose around a leg, the man it belongs to regarding her warily through fever-bright eyes, that she cannot think of them as soldiers, not anymore. They are simply men, wounded broken men, and nothing more than that. There is no pretending here, no lying, not to herself, not now.

She is so hollow, so tired. What she would not give to lie down and sleep for a hundred years, but she has never been able to sleep on trains. The constant chugging noise is enough to keep her thoughts churning, over and over and over again in time with the motion, and her thoughts do not need any help, not now. Every limb, every fibre of her, is heavy and aching, but if she lies down she will not be able to stop herself from thinking.

(If she sleeps she will think of Edouard, dream of him, long for him. Think of how he should be on this train, travelling to Paris to recuperate. How she should be spending her hours with him, kissing his hand, and his forehead, and holding him, and murmuring to him, and he would lean his head into her shoulder, and she would smooth back his hair and force a smile for him, pretend that she is not worried though the relief would be real, the happiness at him being well enough to travel. And they would exist only in each other’s arms, and nothing else would matter, nothing else. But if she lets herself think of him she will crack, and she is barely held together as it is, and she must not crack now, not when she is on her way to Paris, not when these men need her, she must not.)

There is a compartment of gassed men, damp bandages around their burnt eyes, strips of gauze protecting their blistered raw skin. She cannot change their dressings, not here. She has not the space for it, everything too cramped and confined, but she murmurs to them, cradles their delicate hands in hers, careful not to hurt them, and tries to pretend that their breathing is not laboured, that she cannot hear the rattle of fluid in their lungs, has not wiped pink froth from their lips. These men need her perhaps more than any of the others, so they know they are not alone, to try to take their fear away when the morphine can do so little for their pain.

For a long time, long stretching hours when she is expected to be sleeping but cannot sleep, she moves between the berths of these gassed men, and holds their hands, and prays with them, for them, every prayer that she can conjure up, and with their covered eyes they do not see the tears trickling down her cheeks even as she fights to keep her voice steady (it would not do to upset them). And they cough, and she trickles water between blistered lips, and she does not think, does not feel, and it is as if she exists only for these men, as if the whole world has come down to this, this compartment in this train with these berths of the gassed, rolling on ever into the darkness.

* * *

 

The nurse told him that Konstin is in the next room. He asked her as she drew the blankets up to his chin, and it was at once a comfort to discover that he is so close by and an aching disappointment (tinged with worry that makes his heart twist) that Konstin will not be joining him in this room. The nurse smiled at him as she slipped out, and though he smiled back at her, it only masked the questions lingering in his mind. If Konstin is in the next room, is he on the other side of this wall that the head of Antoine’s bed is against, or is he against the far wall? Or perhaps he is in the other room, sharing the wall furthest away from Antoine. How to know? How to find out?

It seems so important to know, important that he be able to check in on Konstin secretly, in his own way, the nurses and orderlies oblivious. They would not understand, would only become curious. And curiosity leads to investigation, leads to discovery. And discovery now would be nothing short of scandalous, possibly even treasonous.

A message. There must be some way to send him some sort of a message.

And then it comes to him, the faint memory of Saint-Cyr, of their time as officers-in-training, when they had tiny narrow adjoining rooms. In the small hours, long after lights out, when the rest of the dormitory was sleeping, they would softly tap messages on the wall in code. Not Morse Code, that would be too obvious, and everyone in the rooms around them would be able to deduce the meaning. No. They devised their own system of tapping, one that they wrote down before ever they reached Saint-Cyr, and learned, for the sake of being prepared.

What message to tap out? Something simple, innocuous.

His initial. That would do.

Antoine sighs, and dredges up the letter K. He always used Konstin, never his given name of Erik. It was almost an extra layer of security, and K was always two quick raps. He tries it now, tap-tap, as if knocking on a door, and waits for thirty seconds, measuring them slowly in his head, before tapping again. Tap-tap.

And back comes the reply. Tap-tap-tap. Three quick raps, the letter A, and a grin spreads slowly over Antoine’s face. So it is the room behind him, and Konstin’s bed is against this wall. The relief that washes over him would be dizzying, if he were not already lying down.

A soft sound comes from the other side of the wall. A tired chuckle, and Antoine sighs and murmurs, twisting so that his lips are as close to the wall as can be, “Good night, Konstin.”

* * *

 

The morning. In the morning she will be able to see him at last, will be able to kiss his hand and press her cheek against his. Her bones ache for sleep, but she cannot sleep with the thought of seeing him, a fountain of questions tumbling in her mind. How pale will he be? (Very, she suspects.) Will he be full of morphine? (Enough to keep him comfortable, she hopes.) Will he be happy to see her? (He will, she knows he will.) Will he have many bandages? (Too many.) Does he know how close he came to death? (She prays not, oh how she prays. What a dreadful thing it would be to live with, having to know that.)

(Does he know his father was watching over him? Could he feel his presence? Did Erik appear to him the way he appeared to her to tell her that Konstin would be well? She has no answers for them, and she knows she will not ask him.)

And though part of her longs to know what happened to him, longs to hear it from him how he was wounded, another part of her cannot stomach the thought of hearing how her son was wounded. It will plague her, one way or the other. The worry, the wondering. The imagined visions of it, haunting her each night, how he must have lain there in such pain, such fear. How he must have bled, that blood so precious that a drop of it must never leave his body, should never have left him.

Is it better to know or not? She cannot tell.

She sent Raoul up to bed hours ago. He had started snoring in his armchair, and she gently shook him awake and supported him up the stairs and eased him into bed. And he stroked her hair, and reached up and kissed her, and whispered, _he will be home soon enough, and then we will see, he will be fine, I know he will,_ and she held him in her arms as he slowly went back to sleep, listening to the softness of his breath. She eased him back down, and tucked him in, then slipped away, back down to her own chair, to her abandoned knitting and the carefully preserved photographs she has spent the evening looking at.

When Konstin was seven months old, Raoul arranged an appointment with a photographer. “Consider it a gift,” he said, his eyes kind, “I know you have nothing—nothing like that of Erik, so I thought you might like to have some of Konstin. Something to keep, a reminder.” And she remembers the tears welling in her eyes as she hugged him, and thanked him, and a fleeting flicker of something made her kiss his cheek. He blushed scarlet, and when the day of the appointment came, she had a photograph taken of him and her and Konstin together, as well as one of her holding Konstin, and Nadir and Darius with Konstin. She would have liked to have one of him with Sorelli, but she was shortly after having the twins and in no condition for it. But if Christine has to choose a favourite from that photography session that must have cost Raoul a small fortune, it must be the one of Konstin on his own, sitting up, his eyes wide with wonder, and face framed with blond curls, almost a halo. It took so much coaxing to get him to sit still, and he is almost angelic in the portrait, perfectly innocent and adorable, and looking at the photograph now Christine feels a pang of pain in her heart.

If he could be that size again, she would cradle him so close, would do everything she could to keep him safe and innocent, make certain that he would never have to suffer a single day. He has suffered so much, too much, and tears prickle her eyes thinking of it, and she sets the photographs down lest any droplet fall on them. They are too precious to risk them being damaged in such a way. Too precious, but not half as precious as the boy in them.

* * *

 

He is caught half between the worlds of waking and sleeping, limbs heavy with tiredness, the knuckles of his good hand still aching from tapping out messages to Antoine on the wall, when a soft voice calling his name pulls him fully back to consciousness. “Konstin?”

His eyes flicker open, and dimly he sees a figure, a woman, settling into the chair beside his bed. A woman, a woman he knows, who knows his name. He does not know many women, and fewer who would call him _Konstin_. Is it Mamma? No. No, she is too young, and something about her eyes is just slightly wrong.

Then who—

It is only when he feels the soft touch of fingertips on the back of his hand that he realises it is Anja. Anja, here. And before he can say anything, before he can even smile at her, there are tears welling in his eyes because she is _here_ , and she is _safe_ , and _he_ is here and he is safe, and things can only get better now, only get better, and his throat is too tight to swallow, and she is wrapping her arms around him, careful and gentle and laying her head down on his shoulder.

She does not speak, only whimpers, and through his shirt he can feel the twisting of her lips. His little sister, his little sister so grown up and here, and she is hugging him, hugging him. A part of him did not think he would ever see her again, thought she might only be an impression lingering in his thoughts where—wherever he would end up, but she is here, and real, and hugging him, and it is too much, too much and not enough to have her here, to have her arms around him. His tears run down into her hair, and her tears are damp and warm against his neck, and for a long time they can only hold each other, just hold each other and cry.


	27. Reunited

His eyes flicker open to an empty room, the thin morning light illuminating the somehow colourful sterility of the place, blurred as if he is looking at it through water. Anja is gone, and pain pangs in his heart at the sight of her empty chair. She kept the nightmares at bay, and for the first time, when he knew he could open his eyes to her soft face, there were no visions of blood-stained uniforms or echoes of shells through the mist, but the memory of them lingers now on his skin. They are not so very far away, are creeping back, circling to get him, to take him, to punish him for what he has done, for the trail of dead he has left behind him.

His men. Where are his men? He wondered about them, so long ago, as he lay heavy and the fog pressed down on him and there was not a soul to be seen, the world muffled silent. No men. No bodies. No distant voices. Did they get away and leave him there? It would be desertion, abandonment, and he knows he should be angry, but he cannot be angry, not now. Better desertion than—than the alternative.

_Let them be alive,_ he thinks, _let them be alive._

His eyes fall to Anja’s empty chair, and his fingers are warm with her remembered touch. But she is not here, and the pale faces of the battlefield are brushing up against him already.

He must not close his eyes. He must not.

* * *

 

What will Maman think, when she sees her? Will she know? Will she able to sense what has happened? Or will she be too happy, too relieved, to have her family all back together in Paris for however brief a time, to even notice?

No. She will notice. If there is one thing that Maman is it is perceptive. She is bound to notice, and it is impossible to keep secrets from her. Possibly, she even knows about Antoine and Konstin, in her own intuitive way, though they will hardly have told her. She was a _prima ballerina_ , after all, and such things happen between the boys in the ballet. Doubtless she thinks it is something normal, or at least not _unusual_ , not overly scandalous.

But even if she knows about Antoine and Konstin, Edouard is so very different, falls into a completely different realm. And if she senses, realises, otherwise divines, the feelings that live in Marguerite’s heart for him, the aching hollowness at his—at his being gone (how is she still breathing? how is her own heart still beating?), what will she think? What will she say?

How can Marguerite ever begin to tell her about him? She chokes up just thinking about him. How could she ever speak about him? About the way she fell in love with him without ever intending to? About how she tried to fight it but simply was not able to? About the way he kissed her back as if she were the most precious thing in the world? About the way he asked for Konstin, and said that he hoped Antoine would be well? About the way he traced her face and leaned into her and held her hand? How could she ever tell her mother about any of those things?

(About the way it feels as if her heart has been ripped out without him?)

How could she tell Maman about him _without_ any of those things? They had only a scattering of days, without time to speak, to learn. And he was so very ill for most of it, and that last day worst of all, after she had kissed him. But every time he drifted towards consciousness he would smile for her, and he called her beautiful though surely she was far from anyone’s conception of beauty, too washed-out and worn. And she never doubted him, never doubted that he did think her beautiful. The sincerity of his words lay in his eyes, those beautiful green eyes.

They are far enough away from the lines that the land outside is green, has grass and trees, a multitude of shades of green as if there is not a war being waged just within earshot, and each fresh ray of morning sunlight illuminates the lushness of it, makes her heart stir. But for all of the shades of green, rich emerald and light chartreuse and hundreds in between, none of them are the same shade as Edouard’s eyes. And it is a terrible, awful, wonderful, relief.

She does not think she could ever bear to see that shade again.

* * *

 

Anja kneels on the floor next to the couch, the dawn light filtering in the window casting her face pale, and she hugs Christine, leans into her as if she were only a little girl again. “Oh, Mamma,” she whispers, her voice hoarse, “he’s so frail. And he looks so tired, but I think—I think he was happy to see me. I hope he was but he’s so ill, Mamma, and…”

Christine’s thoughts come sluggish. She was dozing when Anja came in, and it takes her a moment to realise that Anja must have visited Konstin. Anxiety twists in her stomach as she clears her throat, those words replaying in her mind. _He’s so frail…he’s so ill…_ The thought of his being frail, weak, makes her feel faintly light-headed and she is grateful that she is already sitting down. “Did you stay with him long?” she whispers, trying to contain the twisting anxiety in her chest.

Anja nods against her. “Most of the night. When—when they didn’t want me elsewhere. He’s in a room on his own and I couldn’t bear to see him alone. So I sat beside him, and talked to him, and he slept a bit. He was sleeping when I left him.” _Slept a bit._ Good. It is good that he is sleeping. He never sleeps enough.

But he is alone. That’s not right. He’s not supposed to be alone, and Christine’s fingers tremble as she smooths back Anja’s hair. Konstin never does well alone, needs company, attention, things to draw him out of his own mind. “And Antoine? Where is he?” If Antoine were with him he would be able to comfort Konstin, to set him at ease.

“In the room next to his.”

Christine nods and pulls Anja closer to her, and nuzzles into her hair, and tries to hide the tears prickling her eyes.

* * *

 

It is quieter here than in the other hospital. There is no distant crash of shells, no rumbling of ambulance engines and shouts of men at all hours of the night. There are only the noises of the city that he has always known, the hum of automobile engines, rattle of carriages, whinny of the odd rare horse that has not been requisitioned and voices muffled by distance and walls, punctuated by the soft footsteps and hushed murmurs of the nurses and orderlies and doctors.

Antoine sighs, and lets his mind wander in the darkness of the room. Surely the war cannot drag on more than another few months. He knows he has been saying that for three years, but perhaps this time it will be true, though if Konstin were to hear him say that he would twist his lips and grumble, “if three years of killing and stalemate have not been enough to end it, what will persuade them to stop?” He has a point, but to give in to that point would be to relinquish all hope of the war ending at any time.

(Sometimes it feels as if they have been fighting over the same square of land for each one of those three years, an endless tug-of-war, each side getting pushed back and advancing forward like some sort of macabre dance.)

It is futile to think of the end of the war, to wonder when it will be. But surely it will need to end sometime. It cannot keep going on and on forever until the end of days.

(There are not enough men in the world, not enough babies being born, to ensure an endless supply of soldiers for the trenches, and the more men killed the less babies will be born, and perhaps this _is_ the end of days, or how it will start. Perhaps they have brought it on themselves.)

When the war ends, because it _has_ to end, it _has_ to and he will not permit himself to consider any other ridiculous possibility, he will take Konstin, and hide him in Erik’s old house beneath the Garnier, and they will live out their days together hidden from the eyes of the world, from its whispers and its glares and its _wars_ and be safe and happy and content in each other’s arms. And no one need ever know. It is none of their affair. They are the ones who got them into this mess!

The older Antoine gets, the longer the war drags on, the more he thinks Erik was right to hide himself away from the affairs of men.

* * *

 

Nightfall. The train is scheduled to arrive in Paris shortly before nightfall, only a handful of short hours away.

She never realised before how short hours can be, how soon they can pass. Then again, there was never a time before when every hour was precious, not before Edouard.

Tears prickle her eyes, and leans her cheek against the window. The glass is cool against her burning skin, and she curls her fingers tight around her Saint Anthony, as if it can bring her closer to him, as if some part of his spirit has lingered within it, continues to linger, pressed against her forever. And when the tears come, and trickle against the glass, she does not try to fight them.

* * *

 

_It is two months since they’ve laid eyes on each other, two months of trenches and drills and letters, and simply being able to breathe the same air is…is almost overwhelming._

_Antoine’s hands are warm, soft as they run over Konstin’s back, and Konstin cannot help but sigh. How long has it been since they have been together, truly together? A year, anyway, slightly more. (Fourteen months, since they came across each other in Rouen and had two nights together, two blessed nights.) And they only have one night tonight, just one night before Antoine needs to return to his unit, but one night…_

_An awful lot can be done in one night._

_Antoine’s lips have the sting of cognac when Konstin’s meet them, and he whimpers, leaning closer and closer. He could lose himself like this, could lose himself in Antoine’s mouth, Antoine’s hands, and he would not care, could not care because it would be Antoine, Antoine, Antoine, and no one else matters half as much as Antoine does, no one._

_And tomorrow he will be gone, on his way back, and then he will be up the lines again and who can tell when they will even be able to write again? Able to see each other? When—if—_

_He pulls back, tears prickling his eyes, and Antoine smiles softly at him, his own eyes shining. “I know, Konstin,” he whispers, his fingers twining tighter with Konstin’s own, “I know. But for tonight—for tonight let’s pretend that none of that exists, all right?”_

_And he nods, unable to swallow the lump in his throat. “All right.” Antoine fingers are light tracing his cheek, and he closes his eyes, and sighs. “All right.”_

* * *

 

The slight creaking of the door forces Antoine to open his eyes, and as if in a vision he sees Maman framed in the doorway, her dress a dark blue and hair neatly pinned back. She steps inside, and his father is close behind, grey-haired and leaning on his cane. He tries not to think that his father looks frail, thinner than he remembers, tries not to think that his mother looks tired, and his heart aches, aches with all that he is resolutely _not thinking_ , aches at seeing them. It is more than a year since he has been on proper leave, been able to come home, more than a year, and it is as if, as if he has dreamed them here, conjured them from the depths of his imagination out of sheer desperation.

“It’s good to see you, Antoine,” Maman smiles, her voice soft as she crosses the room to his side, and her lips are soft as she kisses him on the forehead. His throat tightens, and he musters a smile for her, a smile that he only partly feels, and she kisses him again.

His father takes his hand, and squeezes it. “Does it hurt very much, son?”

Hurt? No, not the way it did. It is not very long since a nurse gave him another dose of morphine, and it has dulled the pain into something he only notices when he concentrates on it. He shakes his head. “No. The morphine is—is helping.” _Helping me, though not helping Konstin_ , he thinks but does not say, and prays that they will not ask him what happened out there, will not ask him how he was wounded.

Has Marguerite told them? Included it in a letter? About how he found Konstin and brought him back to the trench? She never said whether she wrote it to them or not, and a small, selfish part of him hopes that she did, so that they will not press him now. Someday, likely, they will ask him about it, and he will have to tell them. But please, God, do not let it be now.

He does not think he has the strength to recount it.

(And they will probably blame the morphine if he includes the ghost of Erik leading him back.)

He shakes his head to drive the thoughts away, and it is only then that he realises that it is only his parents visiting him. There is no sign of Guillaume, and if Guillaume were here he would buffer the silent worry of their mother, who is looking at him even now with concern in her dark eyes. Has he had to return to the ship? Or is he still home?

“Is Guillaume still on leave?” he asks softly, and prays the answer is _yes_. Heaven knows he needs to see his brother, now more than ever.

Maman nods. “Yes. He applied for an extension to his leave, for “extenuating family circumstances”, and they gave it to him. He said he would come see you later, or tomorrow.”

“He did not want to wear you out,” Papa says, and Antoine nods, and silently wishes that Guillaume had not been so considerate, and come.

* * *

 

Slowly her eyes rove over Konstin, lying in front of her in the bed. The linen sheets are pulled up to his chin, hiding what must surely be a mass of bandages from view, and they cover even his left arm, his right lying exposed beside him. His face is pale, as Anja said, as she expected, ash-pale and pasty after all he has gone through, and there is a half-healed gash over his left eye, and another under the eye along the cheekbone, and a small one just at the edge of his mouth. Her fingers hover over those gashes, those wounds, aching to rub them away, to hide them, to pretend as if they have never marred his face, but she cannot bring herself to trace them lest she hurt him.

Oh, but he looks so frail, so ill. Anja did not do justice to the full extent of it. His cheekbones are hollower than she remembers, his face thinner. Surely he cannot have grown so gaunt just in the time since he was wounded. He must have stopped taking care of himself. He always was so prone to self-neglect, especially when stressed or upset. There is every chance he was neglecting himself again.

(What she would not give to be able to go back and shake him and make him promise to take care of himself, promise to be careful. But she has extracted those promises from him so many times, and this is where they have gotten him, lying here.)

The war has aged him, aged him terribly. How did she not notice before? She’s his mother! She’s supposed to know these things! But he is so thin, and she is certain that if the sheets were not covering him she would be able to count all of his ribs, and his dark hair is peppered with grey, that dark hair that he has always been so vain about. Pain twists sharply in her heart, aching pain to be able to wipe away the trace of all that he has gone through, to be able to restore her sweet boy from this man who looks as if he is almost too weak to be breathing, though he is breathing, he is, each breath soft and gentle, his lips slightly parted.

In an odd way, he has always looked like Erik. He has the same ears, the same angles in his face though his features are fuller, though he has a nose and his mouth is not distorted. Something of Erik has always lingered in the form of him, in the height and the leanness, even discounting the eyes, but now, lying here before her now, as if restored from the dead, he looks more like his father than ever.

She lowers herself, slowly, into the chair beside his bed, the one that Anja must have occupied through the night, and leans in, and ever so gently presses a kiss to his cheek. His skin is cool, slightly rough, likely from enduring the elements while he was out there, its boyhood softness long lost, and slowly she wraps her hand around his, careful not to wake him, not to hurt him. A faint whimper comes from his throat, as if he senses that she is here, and it goes straight to her heart.

“Ssshhh, darling,” she murmurs, bowing her head and gently kissing the back of his hand. “Just rest, darling, just rest.” And she cups her hand around the top of his head, and cards her fingers through his hair, her heart aching at the way they snag in the snarls and tangles. It is longer than the last time he was home on leave, almost long enough to start curling, and he has not worn it so long since he came home from Persia, when it had grown down to brush his shoulders. One of his first acts on arriving home was to cut it off, and she pretended her heart was not aching when he returned from the barber with short hair, all of his waves gone.

_It is much more civilised like this, Mamma,_ he said, as if he was trying to convince himself as much as her, and it was the first time he called her Mamma since he was a boy. All through his teens she was Maman, but after Persia he reverted back, and she tried not to think about the things he must have heard about Erik, the whispers that must have reached his ears.

She has never asked him what he learned about Erik out there. Sometimes she wished to, sometimes she almost thought she would, but if he had wanted to talk about it he would have told her, and Erik himself told her enough, once upon a time, and later Nadir, to more than satisfy her curiosity on the point.

(Konstin confided it all in Nadir, she knows. They had several long night-time conversations in the weeks after Konstin returned, and he always sent separate letter to Nadir while he was away. Nadir alone knew the full extent of all that Konstin had learned, and more, even, perhaps, and he brought it with him to his grave. Sometimes he would look at her with a pleading sadness in his eyes, as if he was begging her to understand why Konstin was telling this things to him and not to her, and she did understand, she did, and she never held it against him but how she has always wished that she would be the one that Konstin could confide the things he learned about Erik in.)

Raoul comes to stand beside her, distracting her from that train of thought. She feels him more than sees him, the soft brush of his coat against her, and he wraps an arm around her shoulders, and kisses her hair, and she leans into him, her throat too tight to speak.

How long they stay like that, she cannot tell. She simply sits, holding Konstin’s hand, stroking his hair, Raoul standing beside her, a warm presence, a reassurance that the worst is over, that everything will be all right. And when, at last, Konstin grimaces, and his eyes flicker open, blinking rapidly against the light, she sees that the left eye is bloodshot, the blood darkening the gold of his iris, and she swallows down the tightening in her throat at the sight of it. It would not do to let him see her cry.

Slowly, he turns his head, and when his eyes meet hers he gasps. For one long moment there are only his eyes, staring into hers, and then she sees a tear trickle over the bridge of his nose, and gently she reaches out and wipes it away.

His lips twist and he whispers, his voice hoarse, hoarser than she has ever heard it, “Oh, Mamma.” And those two simple words break all of her resolve, and her own tears well up, trickle from her eyes as she leans in and kisses his forehead.

“I’m here now,” she whispers, squeezing his fingers. “I’m here.”


	28. Together Again

He cannot help the tears that keep rolling from his eyes. He does not try to fight them, simply lets them come as they will, his heart heavy and aching. Mamma is gone, back home again, after kissing him several times on the face and reminding him of how much he needs to rest and promising to return soon. (Raoul squeezed his hand, his eyes soft and gentle, and whispered, “It’s good to see you,” and leaned in and pressed his lips lightly to his forehead, and his voice carried so much more than his words.) And he wishes she were still here, wishes she would not leave him alone in this room, that she could stay and he could cuddle against her, and she would sing to him as she did when he was a boy, and whisper stories to him of Papa.

Papa. Should he have told her of Papa? Of the way he always seemed to be there when he opened his eyes?  Of the way he spoke to him and cradled his hand? Even now he struggles to remember the things that Papa said, but those sad words have lingered in his mind, as if they are woven into him, have become part of the fabric of his heart.

_I wish I had fought harder._

_I wish._

And pain lances through him, makes him gasp, because he, too, wishes Papa had fought harder. Wishes he could have spoken to him, properly, even just once. That he could have had him growing up, even just for a time. He has spent his whole life aching for his father, and in those days when he was so ill he had him, but now he is lost to him again and it is as if all of the old wounds have been ripped open, as if they will not heal no matter how much time passes, how much he tries to move on from them.

“I love you, Papa,” he whispers, his voice hoarse, into the stillness of the room, as if his father might be here now, simply hiding out of sight, and it would be so easy to hide out of his line of sight now thanks to his damn eye. _I love you._ It is the one thing he has ached to tell him all of his life, and it is only now that he is able to breathe the words, and his Papa is not here to hear them. (Was he really there? In the hospital? Or was he simply an hallucination? Something dredged up by his feverish brain to try to force himself to live? He must have been there, he must have been. Konstin could see him and he never knew what he looked like, never could have known, only what he has heard, and so when he was able to see him, able to feel him and hear him, (and how could his feverish brain have conjured how his voice was if he never heard it before?) then he must have really been there.)

“I love you.”

* * *

 

Raoul’s arms are tight around her, safe, his face buried in her hair, voice muffled. “He’s going to get well,” he whispers, “he will, he just needs time.” But no matter what he says, all of his gentle words, none of them can ease the pain twisting inside of her, can banish the tears that keep rolling down her cheeks.

She held herself together in front of Konstin, fought her tears as well as she could. But she is away from him now and the tears come, keep coming and there is no stopping them, can be no stopping them, not now that she is away from him again. He is so ill, her poor, dear boy is so ill. And he clung to her hand as if he were only a child again, as if he never wanted her to leave, as if he needed her there every moment to keep his own pain away, to bring himself some comfort.

She had to leave him, she had to. She did not want to exhaust him too much when he is so very weak, and no matter how much she longs to be with him, how much he needs her with him, it would not be right to be there in the way of the nurses and doctors who keep checking in on him, even as he slept.

“Oh, Christine.” And there are tears thick in Raoul’s voice too, and she wraps her arms around him, holds onto him tight, as if by clinging to each other it will be enough to give Konstin strength again, enough to help him heal. And she can still feel Konstin’s hand wrapped around her own, the weak impression of his touch lingering in her skin, and Raoul kisses her hair. “Oh, Christine.”

* * *

 

The orderlies unload the casualties off the train, and load them into ambulances, and slowly she picks her way through the crowded platform, trying to find someone she recognises. Is Papa here waiting for her? Or Maman? Or both of them? Or are they at the hospital with Antoine?

There are too many people, far too many people, and panic briefly flares in her stomach that there is no one here for her, that she will have to find her own way home. But in the next moment she tells herself that is ridiculous. Of course, there is someone here for her, of course there is. It is only a matter of finding them in the crowd, whoever it may be.

Hardly does the thought cross her mind when she sees a flash of a heavy dark blue overcoat and then arms are wrapping around her and swinging her in the air. Blue eyes, and dark hair, and a grin, and then she’s grinning back because it’s Guillaume and it would be like Guillaume to hide on her in a crowd, just like Guillaume, and then she’s laughing, and tears are streaming down her face, and Guillaume is setting her down, and she barely has time to register how tired he looks, and drawn, when he is pulling her into his arms for a proper hug.

“It’s good to see you,” he whispers into her hair, his voice hoarse, “good to see you.”

And _good to see you_ barely qualifies as able to express how wonderful it is to see him, how wonderful it is to feel his arms around her, safe and warm. It must be a year and a half at least since she has seen him, since they have both been on leave together (and if she were not so tired she would know, would be able to summon the date from memory, but she feels as weak as if one strong wind would blow her away, as if she is only able to stand now because of Guillaume her supporting her).

“Maman insists you go home to bed,” he adds, pulling back and surveying her, his mouth creased and critical, ever the concerned eldest brother, “and I think she might be right. You look exhausted.”

Exhausted is an understatement, and she nods. “Bed sounds good.” The lie rolls off her tongue as easy as any, as easy as all of the ones she will need to get used to telling about how she is feeling, and Guillaume scoops up her bag, and drapes an arm over her shoulder, and she tries not to think about when a time will come when he will ask her why she is so worn out, and she will have to tell him the truth.

* * *

 

_Shadows shifting in the fog, dull and dark against the mist. A flash of grey, of blue, of scarlet spurting into the air. He needs to get to that scarlet, needs to get to it, plug it somehow, fingers buried deep in bullet wounds. And he is stumbling, his knees throbbing, legs aching as he pulls himself through the mud._

_His boot gets trapped, the mud sucking on it, pulling him down, but he can’t get trapped out here, not in this fog, not in this mud and is it only mud or is it bits of man blown up? Bits of body sent out to lie in wait, and bile burns in his throat but he swallows it down, tries to pull on his boot. He cannot get trapped. If he gets trapped he’s dead, dead. He needs to pull himself out, needs to keep going, to get back to the line._

_A screech, louder than the others, a crash, and he is falling, falling, tumbling through the air and—_

_—and something soft breaks his fall, and he looks down, looks down on a tangled mass of limbs, of horizon-blue uniform all stained dark and stiff and his stomach churns. A pile of the dead, a mound of them, waiting for him, ready to claim him as their king, to drag him down too into their crushing depths and his lungs burn and there is screaming, screaming, screaming—_

_Screaming, and choking silence, a gurgling breath and darkness._

* * *

 

Footsteps, and Antoine ceases his analysis of the ceiling (the wood is dark, stained, though he can still see two knots, they are close together, watching like disembodied eyes), and turns his face towards the door. The footsteps are just outside, and a moment later the door creaks open, and there like some sort of an apparition, is Guillaume. His face is tanned, more tanned than Antoine can remember, almost burnished, and his hair seems blacker than ever, as if it would shine faintly blue beneath the light.

He appraises Antoine silently, and smiles. “You look terrible,” and there is something oddly refreshing about his bluntness that makes Antoine smile back at him.

“Thank you. It’s what tends to happen when you get shot.”

Guillaume makes a moue of distaste as he crosses the room and settles into the chair by the bed, but he does not comment. Instead, he says, his voice soft, “I collected Marguerite from the train and took her home. She has either gone to bed, or Maman is still fussing over her.” He pauses, and his smile disappears, his voice more solemn as he says, “she looks exhausted.”

Antoine makes a noise of agreement, and is relieved that he is not the only one who noticed that. If Guillaume can see it too, then there really must be something wrong with her, but Guillaume knows as well as he does not to press her to talk. “It is exhausting work, nursing out there. And—and it cannot have been easy for her, with Konstin and I.”

But Guillaume shakes his head, and his face is grave. “It’s more than that. There’s something in her eyes. A sadness I have never seen there before. As if—well, as if she misses someone very dreadfully. I tried to get her to talk but,” and he shrugs, “when she doesn’t want to tell someone…”

He words trail off, hang heavy in the silence, twisting in Antoine’s brain. What is it that Marguerite is not telling them? It is more than stress and exhaustion, he knows that in spite of what he’s said to Guillaume, in spite of what he tries to tell himself. It must be more than that, but—but she’s Marguerite. And Marguerite is much too careful, has always been and is especially so in these times, to let herself fall in love with a man.

But Antoine cannot swell on it and perhaps that is best, the anxiety cold on his skin when he tries through to think. Guillaume is speaking again, and his voice is soft as he says, “Konstin was asleep when I looked in on him.” And the relief that comes from his words makes Antoine sigh.

Good. It is better for him to sleep than to lie awake, though he would have liked to see Guillaume, Antoine knows. He always likes to see Guillaume, but it is more important for him to rest. “Did he look comfortable?” _Please let him be comfortable._

Guillaume shrugs, his lip twisting. “About as comfortable as I expected he might. I take it the morphine is not helping him very much.”

“Not as much as it should.”

Guillaume raises an eyebrow knowingly, but his eyes are gentle. “It must not have been easy for you.” The statement is not a statement, is rather a pointed question, but it does not hold an ounce of judgement. Guillaume has, of course, known for years. He is the one person they confided in, when they returned home from Persia. The whole nature of their changed relationship, and he sighed, and leaned back in his chair with steepled fingers, and said that he had wondered when they would give in and admit their feelings for each other. _I’ve been expecting this day for years,_ he said, and grinned, then leaned forwards and took both of their hands. _It’s about damn time._

_It must not have been easy for you._ The words circle in Antoine’s brain, replace the memory from more than a decade ago, and he has a brief flash of sitting beside Konstin’s bed that night, that terrible night when his fever was so high and his blood pressure so low that it looked like he might die, and he whispers, his voice hoarse with all of the tears he shed and has yet to shed, “I’ve had more enjoyable times in the trenches.”

And in spite of everything, in spite of the worry, and the pain, and the fear and relief, Guillaume snorts with laughter and Antoine cannot suppress a chuckle. And then they are laughing, truly laughing, and Antoine feels light as air, as if he could fly.

 

It is a long time later, when they have both caught their breath and talked of inconsequential things (the opera, Capitaine De Courcy, some art that Guillaume wandered out to look at when he wished to distract himself, the weather, even), that Guillaume squeezes Antoine’s hand, and the tears are clear in his eyes. “Don’t you ever frighten me like that again,” he whispers, and his voice is hoarse. “I thought—I tried not to, but I did think that—that you would—or him—”

And Antoine shushes him, shushes him with tears prickling at his own eyes, and squeezes his hand back. “I know. I know. And I’ll try, I can’t promise, but I’ll try.”

The words are not enough, can never be enough, but Guillaume nods, the tears at last spilling down his cheeks, and he buries his head in the pillow next to Antoine’s, and swallows. “I’m older, remember. It’s my job to go before you do and—and I could not bear it if—if something were to happen.”

Antoine tilts his head so that his face pressing against Guillaume’s, and nods. “Just don’t let anything happen to you either.” His voice is gruff, and at another time, at any other time, he might follow that with, _I don’t want to end up as the heir and be compelled to marry a woman,_ but the humour for it feels unnatural, and he wraps his arm around Guillaume, and draws him closer, as if they were both boys again, and all that matters is that he is here, he is here.


	29. Grief to Grace

Though the surgeon (who seems to be at least as old as Raoul and whose hair is wholly grey) has passed him recovered enough that he is permitted to stand, and even to try to walk, Antoine can only manage a couple of steps before his legs buckle beneath him, and the nurse that is supporting him (a stern-faced woman who is either his age or older) catches him and eases him back onto the bed. Pain shoots beneath his ribs at the jarring of his wound, but though it makes him wince Antoine bites his lip and refuses to whimper. The surgeon also considers his wound recovered enough that they are cutting down his morphine supply, and though he does not relish the thought of more pain, it is a relief. If he is recovering enough that they want him to walk, recovering enough that they are cutting down his morphine, then surely that can only mean that he will soon be recovered enough to leave this room, to visit Konstin.

And if visiting Konstin is the only motivation that Antoine can give himself, then it is more than enough. He is sick of communicating by tapping on the wall. It is high time that he get himself able to see the man he loves, to talk to him properly, and even if they are not able to kiss because of the risk of prying eyes, then holding his hand, if only for a moment, will more than suffice.

He will make it suffice.

Antoine braces himself, and looks back up at the nurse who is regarding him carefully, and nods. “Let’s try again.”

* * *

 

_His face is chilled, waxy beneath her fingertips, and she lightly traces the contours of it, learns it. The angle of his nose (smooth), the thin delicate skin of his eyelids (some part of her whispering to be gentle, not to hurt him), two pockmarked scars hidden along his hairline, legacy of a childhood illness._

_Like shell craters._

_Her fingers tremble at the very thought, and she trails them downwards, over the faint creases at the edge of his eye, over the angle of his cheek, and they come to rest on his lips. His parted, pale, tinged blue lips, and there is no brush of air, no warmth, no movement. No breath against her fingertips and she did not expect there to be, did not expect, but there is supposed to be breath, supposed to be a soft exhale, supposed to be—_

Marguerite’s eyes snap open, heart pounding, breaths short, and the impression of Edouard’s lips lingers on her fingertips. She gasps, her heart twisting, and it is then, and only then, that she realizes her cheeks are wet.

* * *

 

The tears trickle slowly from Mamma’s eyes as he speaks, and he briefly considers stopping, briefly regrets telling her about Papa at all, and his voice is soft as he asks, “Would you like me to stop?” If it is hurting her, drawing up old painful memories for her, then there is no need for her to hear about these things, no need for her to hear about the way Papa stayed with him through it all.

She shakes her head, and gently kisses his fingers that she has cradled to her lips. Her voice is muffled as she speaks. “No, don’t. Tell me everything, everything you remember. It is good to hear about him, good to know that he is out there somewhere even if I cannot see him.” She pauses, and when she speaks again her voice is fainter. “It would be so much worse—so much worse to think of him just not being anywhere.”

It is not the first time that Konstin has wondered about how awful it must have been for her, losing Papa when they had only had a few months together. He has always known what happened. She explained it to him gently when he was very young and asked her why _Gee and Twon have a Papa and I have no Papa_ , and she wrapped him in her arms, and her voice got all strange as she explained to him that _your Papa was very ill, Konstin, and he had to go to be with God, but he’s watching over you, I promise he is_ and of course that was what made him wonder if Papa was a ghost, made him wonder over why, if Papa was watching over him, he could not see Papa, or talk to him. It all seemed so simple to his child’s mind, and he was far too young to think of how painful it must have been for Mamma, to be reminded of the fact that he could not know his father, and his father could not know him, and she must be without him, without the man she had loved.

And she was so young, so young when she lost Papa, so young when she was left a widow expecting a baby, barely older than Anja is now. Barely more than a girl herself, really, and sometimes he still struggles to remember that Anja is not a child anymore but a young woman, but Mamma was that young woman once when she met the man who would be his father and—

and it feels as if the world is tilting into place, the terrible awful grief his mother must have known, and of course he’s known about it, always been aware of it on some level, but if he were to lose Antoine he does not think he could survive, does not think he would have the strength to keep breathing without him, but Mamma lost Erik, lost Papa, lost his father, and still carried on and had him, and tried to be happy for him, and it was not until he got older, got much older, shortly after he first kissed Antoine and realised he could not live without him, that he realised how much of a struggle it must have been for her, pretending that she was not constantly aching inside.

And for the first time, for the first time though he has always distantly known it, Konstin realises that his mother is still grieving for his father, still aching for him. It is there in her eyes, there in her voice, there in the twist of her lips against his fingers, and tears sting his eyes, blur her though she is slightly blurred already, and he swallows hard against the tightness in his throat.

To have carried that grief, that pain, through thirty-six years…

And to be able to be happy in spite of that pain always being there.

He swallows again, and whispers, finding the words the ghost of his father breathed into his ear, “He said you made him very happy.” He sucks in a breath, willing the tears to hold off, just a little longer, and fresh tears well up in Mamma’s eyes. “And he was sorry, sorry for hurting you, and for—for not fighting harder.” Konstin’s own voice breaks now, his throat tight. How often have those words replayed in his mind? _I wish I had fought harder. I wish._ So many times, so many, and how often has he wished the same thing too, that Papa had fought harder?

More times than he can count.

Every day of his life.

And Mamma has wished it even more desperately.

Her fingertips are gentle wiping his tears away, and she bows her head, and kisses him gently on the forehead. “I never stopped loving him, you know,” she whispers, and he knows that, oh, he _knows that_ now though he never really knew it before. “Not once, through all those years. I never stopped. And you know I—I miss him still. It never really goes away.” She pauses, and swallows, and smiles at him, the tears trickling down her cheeks. “You are so much like him,” she whispers, “so much. I see him in you all the time, as if some part of him has remained. And though I—I can’t see _him_ can’t—I’m glad that he was there with you. I’m so glad.”

_So much like him._

_We have never been normal, you or I._

The ache inside of Konstin’s chest, the ache for his father that has always been there, is wider now than it has ever been, longing writhing inside of him, and Mamma presses her lips again to his forehead, squeezes his hand tighter, and his voice is as small as a little boy’s as he whispers, “I miss him, Mamma. He said he wouldn’t leave, but he’s gone, he’s gone—”

“Ssshh, ssshhh. Don’t fret yourself, darling, don’t fret. I think he’s—he’s probably here, even now, only neither of us realise it. I think he,” and her voice trembles but she goes on, “I think he’s always been here.” And she presses her forehead against his, her arm slipping under his shoulders to pull him closer, and he whimpers, and closes his eyes, and hopes, hopes desperately, that her words are true.

* * *

 

Even though Konstin dozed off some time ago, Christine cannot bear to leave him, not now. He is so fragile, so delicate, and the thought of leaving him, now, when there was such pain in his eyes as he talked of Erik, makes her heart squirm and rebel. He needs her here, so very much.

His fingers are cool against her lips, almost brittle, and in her mind’s eye it could be all of those decades ago, her sitting by Erik’s bedside instead of Konstin’s, holding his still, cool fingers to her lips and waiting, endlessly waiting, for him to wake up.

How many times did she do that? Sit beside him and cradle his hand, and wait? After morphine doses and pains in his chest and full-on attacks that made him collapse, each time some part of her wondering, _how much longer? How much more will he be forced to endure?_ While she hoped, and prayed, and ached for him to be all right.

(If she cast her mind back, dared to dwell in those, some of the most painful memories of their time together, she would surely find an answer.)

But Erik was there, with Konstin. And no matter how she aches inside, no matter how much worry still lingers in her bones, she cannot help but feel lighter for knowing that. Oh, Raoul had assured her of it (“How could he be anywhere else, Christine?”) and she suspected it herself, especially after he came to her that night, promising her that their boy would be all right, and saying that he was so proud of him, but it is a different thing, to hear it directly from Konstin than to simply know it by her own intuition.

The confirmation of it still brings tears to her eyes, but they are not tears of grief, or of fear, simply of happiness.

Better that Erik be out there somewhere, than to be simply nowhere. Better that he still exist in some form, in some way, than to be simply nothing.

And best that he have been with Konstin.

It must have been such a comfort to Konstin, to see him, to hear him, to feel him. Oh, but she is so happy for him, so happy that he could meet his father at last.

_He kept telling me I had to live, Mamma._

She knows firsthand how persuasive Erik was, the way he could look at someone and say something, and it felt absolutely necessary to do as he instructed. He trained her voice, did he not? And he compelled her more than once, in those first difficult weeks, before everything with Raoul and the torture chamber, but not in their marriage.

Never in their marriage.

She acted of her own free will in all of that.

But it is Erik who brought her son back to her, Erik who compelled him to live, held his hand and talked to him and reminded him that he needed to fight, needed to survive.

(And when she looked in on Antoine, he confided in her that he thinks it is Erik who led them across No Man’s Land, and she knows it was, oh she _knows_.)

It is thanks to Erik that Konstin is here today, sleeping and frail and still with so very much recovering to do but _here_ , _alive_ and _here_ , all thanks to Erik.

And she kisses his fingers again, her poor boy’s fingers, tears prickling her eyes, and leans back, and sighs. And there are muffled voices in the distance, footsteps of nurses going about their business, but they all fade away, as if they belong to another world and have nothing to do with this, with this room and Konstin in this bed, and his soft breathing is what she focuses on, that breathing that she was terrified she would never hear again.

“Thank you, Erik,” she whispers, and hopes that somehow, somewhere, he can hear her. “Thank you.”


	30. Could Have Been

_Pain aches in his stomach. Has he been shot? The world is dim, grey, and a face hovers before him, a face—Antoine! It is Antoine, his mouth twisted and eyes shining, face pasty pale, fingers gentle, trembling as they brush the hair out of his eyes. “Konstin,” he whispers, his voice hoarse, “Konstin.”_

_Konstin shivers, whether from the pain still burning in his stomach or the note of fear in Antoine’s voice, he cannot tell, and his lips are stiff, his voice groggy as he whispers, “Hold me,” and Antoine nods, tears trickling from his eyes. A shadow, a flicker of movement as Antoine lowers himself down into the mud, wrapping his arms around Konstin though Konstin can barely feel them, feels as if he is as insubstantial as air._

_There is something he must say, something important, something necessary. “If they come to—to take me away, don’t let them.” The very thought, of leaving Antoine’s arms, is enough to make cold sweat bead on his skin and he shivers again, distantly feels Antoine’s arms tighten._

_“I won’t. I won’t, I promise. I’ll be right here.” Antoine’s lips are light against his forehead, their press faint, and Konstin draws a shuddering breath, the pain seeping into his chest, constricting his lungs, dulling the edges of his vision._

_“I—” he swallows, “love you.” He needs to say it, needs to—to make sure he knows. He has to know. He has to._

_“I love you too, I love you.” Kisses pressed to his forehead, his cheeks, his lips, lingering, pressing, though he does not open his mouth, can taste the metallic iron of blood._

_“Don’t—let go.”_

_“I’m not going to.” He can feel tears running into his hair, arms tighter around him, Antoine fading and his heart stutters because Antoine can’t fade he can’t he needs him._

_Words trip to his tongue, poetry, heard long ago but the sentiment was right, the sentiment was always right, and the lines reminded him of someone who ought to have been here but his mind is too hazy to think, to draw it up, but the lines feel right now. “Had we but—world enough—and time.” He has to stop to breathe, his breath catching in his throat. Oh the things they need to do…_

_A sob, half-caught. “Don’t you pull Marvell on me now, you bastard. You’re not—you’re not going anywhere I can’t follow, all right? I need you here. I need you.” The voice is muffled, and he can feel lips against his skin, fingers tapping his cheek, but the world has darkened to night and there are no stars, only arms wrapped around him and a voice, a voice pulling him into the darkness._

His eyes flicker open to misty light, filtering in through the blinds, every part of him aching heavy as he lies. He tries to move, tries to shift himself, but pain lances deep in his stomach and he cries out, tears stinging his eyes. Antoine. Wasn’t Antoine here? Antoine was—was somewhere. Where is he?

Running feet down the hall, and then hands are fumbling over him but the light is too dim to see, his eyes too heavy, and a soft voice is murmuring to him, a soft voice, “You’re all right, Commandant Daaé, you’re all right. Are you in any pain?”

Pain? Of course, there’s pain, he wouldn’t have cried out if he was not in pain, and he nods, his throat aching too much for words.

“I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to wait a little longer. Your chart says it is not long since you had morphine. I can’t give you any more yet, I’m sorry.”

Antoine said something to him like that before, didn’t he? So long ago, only it was not about morphine it was about opium, and there was no sharp pain in his stomach when he tried to move but his skin was so itchy it felt as if it was all going to peel off and crawl away. Antoine. He needs Antoine. Antoine would take the pain away.

But his lips are too stiff to ask for him, and the darkness is creeping back in, and he is falling, falling.

_His eyes flicker open to grey, to pale watery light, and Antoine’s face is haggard, his cheeks stubbled, but a soft smile twitches at his lips and he murmurs, “It’s good to see you. So good to see you.”_

* * *

 

Soft fingertips, light against her cheek, the touch lingering, tingling warm in her skin. Each shift of him against her is gentle, slow. His easy breathing, the susurrating murmur of his heartbeat, the tiny movement of his lips against her forehead. She presses herself tighter against him, too tired to open her eyes, his arms tightening around her.

And in the stillness of the world, the trundling of vehicles on the street below dulled almost to nothing, her body aware only of Raoul, here and warm, the steadying presence he has always been, that she has always needed, all she knows is that Konstin is safe, and he will be well, and somewhere, somehow, some part of Erik is still watching over him and guarding him. Émile and Anja are at work, and Konstin is safe, and Raoul is here holding her, and those simple facts are all that matter in the world.

* * *

 

She is a ghost, an automaton forcing smiles, for Maman and Papa, and Guillaume and Antoine both. The questions from before, from when they were loading him into the ambulance, linger in Antoine’s eyes as she sits with him, and all the time she prays he will not ask even as she rattles on about _how nice it is to be home_ and _you look so much better_ and every scrap she can think of to fill the silence. If he realises she is trying to distract him he does not say, simply nods along and smiles and makes agreeable noises, though his hand is gentle wrapped around hers, waiting for her if she wants to say anything of consequence.

Maman does not pry, though Marguerite can see her worried glances. And Papa hugs her firm, and pats the back of her hand, as if he needs to assure himself that she is really here, needs to assure her that she can tell him what it is preying on her mind.

(She could not talk to Papa about Edouard. It would not—would not feel right to confide in him, not without talking to Maman about it. But the very thought of talking to Maman about it makes the words turn to dust in her throat.)

For Maman, and Papa, and Guillaume, Edouard is someone who never existed, someone who is as inconsequential as the clouds, who they could pass in the street and never recognise. And Antoine did know him, but only in passing. Only as someone within Konstin’s orbit, who had to be greeted but hidden from. Konstin is the only one who might understand, the only one who knew him, to whom Edouard would matter, but she cannot tell Konstin about him because telling Konstin about him would be telling Konstin that he is dead. And telling Konstin that would be admitting it, would be forcing herself to speak the words that still feel so unnatural no matter how true they are.

She excuses herself from Antoine with a slight peck to his cheek, and slips from his room. The sudden need to see Konstin is unbearable, nausea twisting in her gut and she cannot understand it. What could she say to him anyway? Ask him how he is when it is plain to see that he is still far from well? She could not give him the same prattle she gave Antoine, certainly not, it would not do.

And as she stands before his open door, finds him lying with his head tilted away, she remembers what it is that Antoine said to her so long ago, about ghosts on the battlefield.

_The battlefields—they are full of ghosts—Ghosts and wraiths, and they kind of coalesce out of the mist and—it was Erik. I know it was._

Konstin’s father. If Konstin’s father could be a ghost, could come back to haunt a battlefield where he never was in life and lead Antoine to Konstin in the shell crater then—then might Edouard come back? Might Edouard be a ghost, even now, out there somewhere in No Man’s Land in the shell craters and the barbed wire? Might she return to the hospital and attend to some wounded soldier who would swear he was led to safety by a ghost with green eyes?

Her heart pounds, her throat dry. Edouard walked those battlefields. Edouard was wounded out there, lost his life because of what happened out there and it stands to reason that he might come back, might try to save someone else. Konstin wrote once that he was the most talented man at finding a pulse.

_dear Dupuis…watches for every man…finds a pulse even better than I can…_

If he was so careful, so watchful, as a man, how would he be as a ghost? Infinitely better! He must be out there, he must, must be trying to save someone even now as she is here looking in at Konstin and she needs to get back there, needs to find a way to the lines, needs to look for him, find him, tell him that she is sorry, that she loves him, she’s sorry, she needs him, she loves him, so many things she would tell him and she might not be able to touch him but just to see him, to see him—

But even as she thinks it, she knows it is impossible. Men do not simply come back as ghosts. It is not a thing that is done. If it was, then the world would be full of ghosts and everyone would know about it. And Antoine must have been hallucinating, desperate and worried and exhausted. It is impossible that Konstin’s father might be a ghost, and even more impossible that Edouard would be one.

She sags heavy against the wall, all of her energy dissipating in a moment, and she tilts her head back, the tears welling up, pain twisting afresh in her chest, and wishes that just for a moment, she could believe.

* * *

 

_He can’t move, can’t move, arms too heavy, legs too numb. He tries to roll over, tries to curl up, tries to plug his ears to drown out the crashing of shells (closer and closer), the crack of rifle shots, whoosh of bullets raining past, but the moment he tries to move pain shoots sharp through his stomach, piercing through to his spine and he chokes, chokes, tastes blood hot and metallic on his lips, a spray of it in the grey air, starkly crimson._

_Squelching, boots in mud, faint splash of water and his vision clears, a grey-uniformed soldier coalescing, face impenetrable, bearing down on him, coming and coming still coming, black barrel of a pistol aiming for his chest, and he tries again, heart pounding, racing, tries to move, tries to swing his rifle into position, fingers numb on the stock but it’s too heavy and his arm sinks down under the effort, fingers trembling. Bile rises burning in his throat, his lungs constricting, so hard to breathe, and the soldier’s finger tightens on the trigger but he will not close his eyes, will not, must see his death coming at him, it would be dishonourable to close his eyes—_

_A flash of black, cloak billowing though there is no breeze and there is a figure in black standing before him, back turned towards him, and the soft hiss of cord through air, the pistol falling from the soldier’s hand, the man’s blue eyes blown open wide and he falling back, falling back, rubbing his wrist and falling back, and the black-cloaked figure turns, thin cord snaking up his sleeve, crouching down beside him and all he can see are golden eyes, golden eyes flecked with hazel that seem to almost glow, the crashing shells fading to silence. A soft hand cups his cheek, the light touch of it distant, far away, as if it is touching someone else, and the thumb strokes away a teardrop, and it is the first that he realises he is crying, his vision blurring and he cannot make out the face, only the golden eyes, dimming now, fading._

_Fingers tap his cheek, his eyes rolling and glowing gold coming back into focus, creased and anxious. “Hold on, Konstantin, hold on, fight it,” the voice is low, and soft, like cotton wrapping around him, and distantly he feels arms, slipping under him, pulling him close. “You’re safe now, my boy, you’re safe, I promise. They cannot harm you. Just rest.” And all he knows are those arms, cradling him close, light silk against his cheek, and the soft beating of a heart beneath his ear, fingers stroking his hair. “I love you, so very much. I love you.”_


	31. Realisations and Confessions

Antoine’s soft tappings on the wall are a comfort, but Konstin is too tired to try and piece them together, to make sense of them. His mind is too slow, his thoughts too full of his men, those ghosts that appear before him each time he closes his eyes. It is his duty (was his duty, before he awoke to find himself lying in that hospital with Antoine in the next bed) to call the name of each man under his command when the lorries stopped carrying them in from up the line. In the cold morning light he would stand, Dupuis handing him list after list of names, and he would call each one and they would answer if they were present. And if a man did not answer, he would call the name again, to give him another chance, fervently praying that he would answer, that he was merely distracted, had blanked out a moment, and was not forever detained. And when no answer came the second time, he would put a mark beside the name, his throat tight, and order himself to remain composed until the men were dismissed.

He would have tea, after, and Dupuis would join him and pretend not to see the generous measure of brandy that Konstin would lace his own with, and they would set about the work of writing to kin, mothers and fathers and sisters and wives, almost never brothers because brothers were usually in a unit somewhere too, and Dupuis would always have a few particular words about the family, and have the addresses ready to hand.

(When he wrote to Clara Henri he left her letter until the last, unable to bring himself to write to her, thinking all the time about Dupuis’ mention of the little girl (a five year old, Alba) and the baby (still in the womb), and the cruelty of it all, the sheer unfairness of another father and another baby yet unborn was such that he lay his head down on the desk and wept.)

If he were to take a roll call now, how many of his men would be left to answer? Not Mazet, or Robert. Henri, of course, already had his time not to answer when they last came down from the line and he called the name even knowing there would be no answer, acting for himself that everything was as usual.

Would Dupuis answer?

Surely he would, surely. Just because his face is featured in the pantheon of ghosts does not mean something happened to him. And Konstin sees again the way he glanced at him, a question in his eyes, before he went to attend to a man wounded. Dupuis would have to answer. It could not be any other way.

His heart stutters at the very thought of anything happening to Dupuis, and a moment later there are footsteps pulling him from the fear. He looks up, half-expecting it to be Anja, but the cadence is wrong and tears prickle his eyes at the sight of Émile, framed in the doorway, then crossing the room.  Émile settles into the chair beside the bed, and Konstin has a sudden flash of him lying on the ground, his uniform torn open and blood welling out of his stomach, his knuckles aching trying to rub his chest, willing him to breathe.

His breath catches in his throat, and the memory, the nightmare, dissipates, and this is Émile as he is, sixteen years and looking at once young and impossibly aged, lines under his eyes and his face pale. Émile, real and sitting here, not a dreamed phantom that died under his hands. Real, and whole, and fresh tears trickle from Konstin’s eyes and he raises his good hand and wipes them away.

“Anytime I looked in before you were asleep,” Émile’s voice is soft, deeper than Konstin remembers it being, and as he looks into Émile’s tired eyes, he wonders how long it is since his little brother stopped smiling.

* * *

 

_Soft lips, pressed to his forehead. A line of kisses, each one contiguous, touching so that his face is mapped by those soft kisses as if they were part of a cartographic endeavour. Mapped and explored and charted forever, held safe in Konstin’s mind. The lips shift, press to Antoine’s own, and he opens his mouth to give the probing tongue admittance, groans, a soft hand cupped around his hip and—_

—and he opens his eyes to an empty room, his bed too narrow to hold him and Konstin both. And tears prickle Antoine’s eyes, the pain tingling beneath his ribs drowned out by the hollowness in his chest, the numbness that Konstin is not here.

When will they be together like that again? How much longer must they wait? How much?

* * *

 

It is soft footsteps that wake him from a light sleep. It is not very long since Émile left, and he has not been able to doze off fully. The pain in his leg is particularly difficult, throbbing just a little deeper than usual, and the stiffness in his wrist is irritating.

His eyes flicker open, his vision blurred but he blinks several times and it mostly clears, and he catches sight of Marguerite in the doorway. She looks so very pale, and drawn. He never noticed before. (Why did he not notice?) Likely it is just tiredness though. Everyone is tired now. He can feel the weariness in his bones.

Still, weary or not, she is just standing in the doorway. And if she is as worn out as she looks, she should be sitting down.

He forces a smile, the muscles in his face aching, unaccustomed to such a movement now, and hoarsely whispers, “Come in.”

Her lips twitch, very slightly, and she nods, and walks slowly across the room to settle into the chair by the bed which Émile has so recently vacated, and her voice is low as she asks, “How do you feel, Konstin?”

How does he feel? Huh. She’s starting with the easy questions, and Marguerite is always such an honest girl that it is best to tell her the truth. “Tired. Sore.”

Up close, he can see the dark circles under her eyes, how blanched her skin is, and he wonders vaguely, distantly, if he looks similar. He cannot say that he has had a very restful time, not with the—the terrible things he’s seen in his dreams.

“Is the morphine not helping?”

_Only very little._ “Usually it is reasonable relief, but it—it lingers a bit.”

They are talking as if they are people who have not seen each other in years, treading carefully on half-known ground. Has Antoine told her? About his—his old unfortunate habit? Or has he kept it a secret?

Would that the morphine would help him to sleep now.

And the vision comes again, of mud and fog, and shells screaming in the distance.

Marguerite worked in the hospital. Perhaps—perhaps she might be able to help, might be able to tell him something, and if she can tell him something and he could know for certain then maybe, maybe the nightmares would not be what they are.

“Marguerite, I wonder if—if you could find out for me who—who the casualties were under my command.” His voice is halting, and a chill runs down his spine just at getting the words out, makes him shiver. Another flash, lying stiff beneath the fog, shrouded in a world of silence and not another soul to be seen.

If possible, Marguerite grows even paler, her face bloodless.

“I know one,” she whispers, and a tear glimmers in her eye. He inhales a breath, bracing himself. Who? Who could it be?

“Who?”

She bites her lip, trembling, and her fingers clutch his as if he is a lifeline, an anchor. “Ed—Ed—” she clears her throat, licks her lips. “Capitaine Dupuis.”

And even as his mind chants _no no no no no_ he asks, he has to ask even though her white face must be answer enough. “Wounded? Or—or—” _Please, God, let him only be wounded._

But Marguerite shakes her head ever so slightly, a sob tearing itself from her throat.

It is as if the world stops turning. Konstin’s heart stalls in his chest, his breath catching. It is impossible. Impossible! Dupuis can’t be dead, he can’t! He’s not allowed to die! He’s supposed to keep every man alive, that’s his job, his duty! To search for any sign of life, to seek out pulses and keep pressure on wounds and look him, Konstin, look him square in the eye with that half-defiant gaze and say, _I think he has a chance, sir._

He can’t be dead! How can he be dead?

“How?” Konstin breathes, and his fingers tighten around Marguerite’s in return. “Do you know how it—”

“Peritonitis.” Her voice is faint, but he cannot look at her face, not now, must look down at their joined hands or else he will crack, will fall and not be able to piece himself back together. He can feel the trembling already in his limbs and it aggravates the pain but what does the pain matter now? “He—he had shrapnel in his leg, the right leg, and it—it was too close to the artery so they—they amputated it. Above the knee.” _Amputated it. Above the knee. Right leg._ And Konstin sees again Dupuis standing before him in the mist, balanced on his left leg, the right missing, blood dripping from the stump, and his stomach churns and he retches, and he feels hands rolling him onto his side but he has nothing to bring up, and his stomach clenches painfully again and again, Marguerite’s hand rubbing soothing circles into his back.

“Go on,” he whispers when he gets his breath, when the nausea subsides, “go on.”

“There was damage to his spine too, blunt force, but the—the surgeons thought he might be—might be paralysed.” She pauses, swallows, and Konstin has to fight another shudder, another wave of nausea that he manages to keep at bay. “I attended his surgery, for the spine and—and the leg. But he—he wouldn’t recover from it. His blood pressure and pulse were—were too weak. And they—the surgeons they—they realised they’d,” her voice catches, “they’d missed bleeding. His spleen. And after more surgery for that he—he developed the peritonitis.”

The words hang in the air, and still Konstin dare not look up at her, tries to keep his eyes focused on the open doorway but the tears blur his vision so that it is only a hollow, a gap in the wall, and Marguerite’s breathing is harsh as she whispers, “It was when—when you were fighting your own infection. And they thought you were going to die, Konstin, they did, and Antoine was—was so upset and I—I couldn’t bear to see you like that so I stayed with Dup—with Edouard and he was so ill but I couldn’t bear to leave him and he just kept worsening and worsening, and nothing was working, and then Amélie told me that you had started to recover but Edouard wasn’t recovering and—and I had to leave him to help with casualties and Minette told me he was asking for me so I went back to him, and Dumas was there too, the curé, and I knew, I _knew,_ but I stayed with him and I held his hand and I held him and I kissed him, and he—and he died, Konstin, he died.” Her voice breaks, and pain lances through Konstin’s heart at the realisation, the piercing realisation, that she loved him.

Dupuis is dead. And she loved him.

He rolls onto his back, and now, only now, looks up at her, at the tears streaming down her cheeks, at the broken hollowness in her eyes, and he disentangles their fingers, wraps his good arm around her, and draws her down to him, so that she lays her head on his shoulder, and he nuzzles into her hair to hide his own tears as she weeps into his neck.

How long they stay like that he cannot tell, and it does not matter. He is too numb to keep track of the time, his thoughts a tangle of what Marguerite has said, of the terrible way that Dupuis, dear, wonderful, noble Dupuis, the loyalest of all of his men, the protector, the carer, the guardian, the terrible way that he suffered.

And it is only when he feels no new tears against his neck, when his own tears have dried rough on his face, that he whispers, his voice barely more than a croak, “You loved him, didn’t you?”

She does not speak, only whimpers, and nods, and he fights the new twisting ache in his chest. “Have you—have you told anyone? Your mother? My mother?”

A slight shake of her head, and he rubs his hand gently up her back, the way it used to soothe Anja when she was a little girl, but Marguerite is far from Anja or a little girl. “Tell them,” he whispers. “Tell them.” And he feels the impression of the stem of an opium pipe between his fingers, smells the heavy sweet fumes as if they drift on the breeze, and he swallows. “It is not good to keep such things bottled up inside of you. If he meant that much to you, if he—if he felt the same about you,” and she nods, and his heart lurches and all he can think is, _oh, Dupuis what did you do?_ , “then Dup—Edouard would want you tell them. For your own sake, Marguerite. For your own sake.”

* * *

 

It is a long time later, and Marguerite is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, when she hears the soft tapping at the door, and she knows it is time. Maman. It must be Maman. She has not spoken to her since she got back from the hospital, has not even seen her, but Konstin is right. She needs to tell her.

“Come in,” she calls softly, and the door opens slowly, Maman slipping in, her face pale and hair in a chignon, and something about her pinched features, and the creases around her eyes makes her look older than Marguerite has ever seen her.

She closes the door softly behind her, and settles on the edge of the bed, and Marguerite nuzzles into her side, like she used to do when she was only a little girl who wanted a hug, long before she became a woman who needs so much more than a hug, and Maman takes the hint, and lies down on the bed, and draws Marguerite gently into her arms.

Marguerite nuzzles into her chest, and closes her eyes, and Maman’s hand is gentle rubbing circles into her back. The silence stretches on, disturbed only the sound of their breathing. And it comes to Marguerite, unbidden, that this is the way Antoine used to hold her when she was small and afraid of the dark. He would hold her, and she would cuddle into him, and encased by her brother’s arms it was impossible to see how anything might be wrong with the world.

If only Antoine’s arms could be enough to help her now.

Maman is the first to speak. “You loved someone, didn’t you?” And Marguerite’s breath catches in her throat, her eyes flying open because how does Maman know? Did she sense it? Is it that obvious to the world what has happened? “You loved someone, and he died, didn’t he?”

And Marguerite can only nod, tears trickling from her eyes to wet the smooth blue silk of Maman’s bodice.

Maman sighs, and Marguerite feels dampness in her hair, and when Maman speaks again her voice is hoarse. “I’m sorry. Oh, darling, I’m so sorry. I won’t—I won’t press you for details. We don’t need to talk about him until you’re ready to. Oh, my poor girl. Just know that—know that I’m here, all right? I’ll always be here.”

Marguerite nods again, and Maman’s lips are gentle against her forehead, and for a long time they lie like that, just holding each other, each lost in their own thoughts.

 

And hours have passed, slipped away, and Marguerite’s voice is hoarse, her throat aching, when she finally whispers, “Edouard. His name was Edouard.”


	32. Questions and Guilt

Émile’s voice is soft, his words punctuated by the clicking of Christine’s knitting needles, and every word of his about Konstin goes straight to her heart. “He looked as if he’d seen a ghost, Mamma. As soon as I walked in he went white. Not that he wasn’t already pale, but what colour he had seemed to disappear.” Christine’s stomach churns, and the needles fumble. What could Konstin have seen to trouble him about Émile? It does not make any sense. Émile has nothing to do with what happened out there so why should Konstin have such a reaction? It is not like him.

Unless something about Émile reminded him of the Front. Unless there was another Émile sometime who met a—an unpleasant end. At the very thought Christine’s throat tightens, for the family of this other unknown Émile who may not exist but may have once existed and reminded her son of his little brother. Konstin is safe here in Paris and going to get well, and she prays that the war is over by the time he is well but perhaps there is another mother like her somewhere, the mother of a boy Konstin knew and who was not so fortunate as he to be found in time. And a little part of her, a terrible little part of her, is selfishly grateful that it is that other unknown woman in that situation and not her, and the guilt that washes through her makes sweat bead on her forehead.

She is aware that Raoul is watching her, his lip creased in that way that says he is worried for her, but she clears her throat, and fights to keep her voice steady. “Konstin has had a very trying time, Émile. You know that. It is to be expected that being away from all of that would take some getting used to.”

Émile makes a noise, one half-caught between uncertainty and agreement, and sighs. “Maybe. I just—I don’t know. Something about it feels strange.” And he sighs again, and leans back against the couch, his legs stretched on the floor before him. Anja does not stir as his hair brushes her cheek. She must be asleep, and the sight of her sprawled on the divan makes Christine’s lip twitch. Poor girl. She has been so busy with both the hospital, and her little meet-ups with Capitaine de Courcy that she thinks no one else knows about.

Christine knows she should be upset over it, knows that she should disapprove over Anja meeting with him unchaperoned. But these are far from normal times and who is to say how much longer they can continue to see each other? So long as Anja does not get herself into  _trouble_ there can hardly be any harm in them being sweet on each other. And Christine’s heart flutters to think of the way the Capitaine makes Anja so happy, the way she smiles to herself when she thinks no one is watching. Oh, to be nineteen and to think herself in love. It reminds her of when Raoul was first courting her, before there was ever a question about Erik. There was something so gentle and dreamlike about those days, and if something similar can buoy Anja now, then what harm can there be in it?

Émile’s whisper draws Christine from her thoughts, and it is as if someone has dumped a bucket of ice water over her head, driving away all of the soft thoughts of love and replacing them with twisting anxiety that clenches her heart tight. “He’s on a high dose of morphine, Mamma. I read his chart.”

_A high dose of morphine._ She has never professed any knowledge of pharmacology, but the very words make the vision of Erik’s silver hypodermic swim before her, the plunger pulled out nearly as far as it could go, barrel full and ready to administer that terrible fluid into his veins. A high dose. He was on a very high dose. Is that why Konstin needs a high dose? An impression of his father left on him?

Even as she thinks it she knows it is absurd. More likely it is because of the severity of his wounds. But if Émile thinks it is high, it can hardly be that, can it?

She is spared the trouble of answering because Raoul, his voice faintly tight, says, “I’m sure the surgeons have decided it’s best for him. There’s nothing to worry about.” But the very way he smooths his hand over the creases in his trousers makes her shiver.

* * *

 

The nurse, Delphine, massaged his legs before she left to tend to her other duties, but the pain is creeping into the muscles again, leaving them stiff and sore, as if someone has injected them full of lead. If he could, he would twist himself to get down and rub them, to try and stimulate some of the circulation and ease their throbbing, but that would only pull on his wound and leave him in worse pain.

But yet, though his legs are throbbing and making it difficult to sleep, Antoine cannot be too upset over it. He would not be in pain if the efforts at walking were not going so well. It is simply the result of the muscles adjusting to activity again, after so long spent in bed. It is something to be proud of, something to take heart from, especially since, towards the end of the most recent session, he managed to walk around the bed a couple of times with minimal support from Delphine. It is only a sign of his continual improvement.

But it difficult to take heart, difficult to feel the relief of pain, when he is so tired and it will not let him sleep.

Perhaps he should call for a nurse, should ask her for morphine, just this once. Just to help him sleep.

_Just this once._

Those fatal words that led Konstin into an opium den in the first place.  _Just this once, Antoine,_ and that once turned into more times than either of them could count, left Konstin caught between this world and the next, and Antoine remembers still too well the effort of keeping him breathing, the weight of him in his arms holding him to keep him safe from his own shaking. He sees it in his nightmares.

(He lay on the floor behind Konstin and all night held him close, chest to back, and kissed his damp forehead and hair, and hung on each gasped breath, and when he retched Antoine held back his hair with one hand and lay his other hand on his stomach, felt the contractions of the muscles beneath though there was nothing to come up only the tea that caused it, and rubbed hard to try to ease some of the pain, all of the time whispering and praying and hoping, the tears wet on his cheeks. When the retching ceased he dampened Konstin’s cracked lips with tepid water, trickled a little between them, and when the terrible thing he had feared happened and Konstin’s slow breathing simply stopped, he trickled cold water into his ear like he saw a stable boy do to a newborn foal once to try to revive it, and when Konstin didn’t take a breath though he still had a faint pulse, Antoine rubbed his chest and rolled him over onto his back, and brought their lips together, blowing air into his lungs himself like he heard the lifesaving societies talk about back in Paris, and kept doing that for what felt like an age but only could have been a few breaths, until Konstin gave a weak cough, and took a tiny gasp, and moaned, and Antoine kissed his face, all over his face, his tears smeared, and held him tighter than before, and each weak breath was a gift.)

No. He will not ask for morphine.

If he asks for anything it will be to see Konstin, to be able to sit beside him and touch him and talk to him and know that he is really all right and not have to hear it off someone else. He needs to see Konstin and no one understands that, needs to take his hand and squeeze it and see a flicker of a smile grace those lips. The anxiety, the desperation to see him, twists in his heart, makes it so hard to breathe, and he tightens his fingers in the bed sheets, and takes a shuddering breath to try and ease the pounding of his heart.

_Konstin is all right, he’s all right, he’s all right._  But telling himself that and seeing him are two very different things and he needs to see him to be certain.

When he was able to walk around the bed today then maybe, maybe, if he asks Delphine’s permission tomorrow she will help him in to see Konstin. If he is calm, and quiet, and asks her softly, maybe she will agree, especially if he tells her that it would be a comfort to Konstin, would help to boost his spirits.

Maybe. Just maybe. And he files it away in his mind as a possibility, as something that he will consider, and simply having a plan is enough to ease the tightness in his chest, and he loosens his grip on the bedsheets. His knuckles protest dully, and even they are stiff from disuse. He briefly considers tapping on the wall, just to check in on Konstin, but he is probably asleep now. Best that he sleep and not be disturbed. He needs his rest after—after Marguerite was in with him for such a long time.

Marguerite. She did not stop in to see him today, but he knows she called on Konstin. He could hear her voice in there, though try as he may to strain his ears he could not hear anything that was said, only her voice, and Konstin’s voice lower, and muffled crying. Why was there crying? What could there be for Marguerite or Konstin to cry over?

And the question makes anxiety twist afresh within Antoine though he schools himself to calmness. What could have upset Marguerite? It must be—must be the reason that she looks so worn out, so broken, but why would she talk about it with Konstin and not with him? Or with Guillaume? What could be so terrible that she will not confide in her own brothers?

If Delphine permits him to visit Konstin, perhaps he will ask him, if he thought Konstin would tell him. He needs to know so that he can try to be some comfort to her.

Unless it has nothing to do with what has so affected Marguerite. Unless it is something else, more recent. Panic flares in his heart. Has something happened to his father? Something that they all think he is still too frail to know about?

No. No surely nothing can have happened to his father. If there had then he would have known by Guillaume, Guillaume would have told him, would have decided that he needed to know. But Guillaume simply talked about nothing in particular and left him a newspaper that he is much too tired and sore to try and focus on reading, so surely nothing can have happened to his father.

So it must be whatever happened at the hospital, whatever Marguerite has been trying to hide from him since Konstin’s fever broke.

Anja, even, has noticed. Anja saw Marguerite leaving Konstin’s room, and came in here to ask him what was wrong with her. And if Anja does not know what is wrong then it cannot be his father, cannot be anything that could have happened while they have been back in Paris. But he could not tell Anja that he does not know, so he mustered up his best smile for her, and patted her hand, and simply told her the same old tired line, that Marguerite is exhausted from what she saw in the hospital. But Anja pursed her lips in the way she learned off Christine, and he knew she did not believe him.

He does not even believe himself these days.

* * *

 

He surfaces slowly. Every part of him feels oddly disconnected from the rest, as if he is in separate pieces. As if parts of him have been amputated.

Amputated.

And the image of Dupuis swims before him. Dupuis, balanced on one leg because the other one had been taken away. It—it is impossible that he is gone. Impossible that anything could have happened to him. Dupuis is the one man who is supposed to continue on, supposed to always be there, calm and steady. He has never once seen him to panic, or baulk in the face of what had to be done.

And he is dead.

Dupuis is dead, and it is his fault. Completely, wholly his fault. It was his order that caused it to happen. His command, and Dupuis is—is gone because of it.

No. Not his command. The order came from higher up, passed down to him. _Evening advance, seventeen hundred hours_. And they wandered in the fog for what felt like hours. He does not remember much but he remembers that. The mud, the almost-invisible strands of barbed wire. Skirting around shell craters that he could not see until he was almost upon them, some of them deep enough to swallow a whole company. The way blood was dulled by the fog, aged to look old even as it spurted. The flash of Dupuis’ green eyes, and a nod. Impressions and scraps, collection of little things that could have come from any crossing, may not necessarily have been that one.

(Why can he not remember?)

Trying to cross in that fog was suicide. He knew that. He knew it. And the Colonel agreed with him as he protested, as the message came down to the lines, but said there was nothing they could do. They could only advance. Anything else would be mutiny.

Mutiny.

How he feared mutiny, feared being branded a traitor. Everything stripped from him, his name, his rank. Everything blackened. His family, Antoine by association, that loose connection of being a technical cousin though not a biological one. Shame brought to his mother, as if they have not whispered enough already. Those fork-tonged liars would simply nod and say, “The son was treasonous? What else could you expect? A background like that. I never believed she was widowed...” And it would have upset her so much. And she would never know why he had done it, would never get to know. Would only hear of a court martial and an execution.

He could have played mad. Could have laid down arms and acted that the shells had addled his brain, had destroyed his senses. And they would lock him up somewhere, keep him somewhere away from reasonable people and try to treat a madness that was not there, the only madness their own attempt to send men across in the fog. And Dupuis would be given the command in his absence until a new Commandant could be found or made. The advance would still have to happen.

He should have mutinied. Should have mutinied and damn the consequences. If he had mutinied, simply refused to pass on the order and denied its existence, then insisted his men were not at fault when it was questioned, Dupuis would still be alive and countless others too. He should have exonerated them, placed the full blame on himself, charged Dupuis to send an already-prepared letter to Mamma explaining the situation, and held his head high before the firing squad. There would not be time to say goodbye to Antoine, but surely Antoine would understand.

Better he to have been executed than for Dupuis and the others to have died. It was his responsibility to lead them, to protect them.

It should have been his responsibility to die in their place.

A tear trickles wet from the corner of his eye, and it feels so much closer than everything else, as if that tear is the one real thing left about him. And he gasps, and swallows, and lets the rest of them come as they will.

The thought drifts to him, unbidden, that the tears are the last thing he has left to give to his men, the last tribute he can pay to them. Wiping them away would be more treasonous than mutiny.

* * *

 

It is some time since her mother left her, with the murmured words that she should  _get some sleep_. But though her eyes ache, and her bones hurt, and she has not the energy to so much as lift a finger, Marguerite is altogether too numb to sleep. She closes her eyes, and wills every thought away, and clears her mind, but instead of sleep bearing her away, the hollowness in her heart forces her to open her eyes again.

It is not that her mind is a whirl of thoughts, of possibilities and conjecture, or that she is turning over anything that Maman said to her. Or even that she is terribly full of Edouard. It is simply that she is nothing, only transparent and insubstantial. She is an assembly of threads, woven together, and one strong breath will blow away the illusion, leave her a bundle on the blankets.

If she could even think of Edouard— but it is as if, by telling Maman about him, she has rendered him as insubstantial as she is, and he slips between her fingers, already faded.

Will Maman tell Papa about him? Surely she must. He will ask, will wonder why she spent so long in here with her, and if anything was said, and Maman will have to tell him or else lie. Perhaps—perhaps it would be best if Maman told him. It would save her own struggling later to find the words beneath his concerned gaze, and maybe it would be easier for him to hear, coming from Maman than from her. Maman would reassure him if he thought ill of the whole thing, reassure him in her worldly gentle way. She has always been so very good at that, at settling Papa when his first reaction is to be irritated or annoyed. He is from a different time, Papa. And though it—it would be impossible to be annoyed at Edouard, he could, somehow, see something untoward in it.

He might even remind her that she has no right to feel this way. No right to have loved Edouard, no right to grieve him. She only knew him a few short days and they seemed to encapsulate the world, and what can a few days compare to a lifetime? What right has she to feel this way when she did not truly know him, only knew him as he was then and nothing of the man before?

It is not her place. She is being inappropriate. And yet, telling herself that does not make the aching longing in her heart any less real, does not make the twisting pain any less sharp, does not make the hollowness, the emptiness, any less numb, any less all-consuming. She loved him. They had only a few days and he was ill for all of it, but she kissed him and she loved him and—

—and footsteps in the hallway disturb her thoughts. The door creaks open, and she looks up, half-expecting to find Maman back again, or else Papa. And she is wrong on both counts because Guillaume is the one standing there in his silken pyjamas, his hair mussed as if he is only out of bed.

“I went down to get a drink and saw your light on,” he whispers, and his voice is rough, faintly groggy. And something about how he stands, a little awkward, a little troubled, makes her wonder if he knows, if Maman might have told him too and added on something to the effect of  _be gentle with her._ “How do you feel?”

The question is soft, but that very softness is enough to make tears well in her eyes, and his voice is barely a breath as he murmurs, “Oh, Marguerite,” and then he is crossing the room, and the bed dips as he settles on the edge of it, his arms warm pulling her to him. And the tears blur her vision as she leans into him, and his hand is gentle stroking her hair, and he is whispering, murmuring something that she cannot make out through her own whimpers, and all she wants is this, to stay like this forever, wrapped tight in her brother’s arms, and not have to think, not have to feel, not have to be anything anymore.

* * *

 

An hour has slipped away since Raoul excused himself for the night, and Émile went up to his own room soon afterwards, yawning and stretching, complaining of stiffness from sitting on the floor. And still, Christine is knitting, though what exactly it is she is not certain anymore. It was supposed to be another scarf, but in the time she has been sitting here it has grown into something far removed from any scarf she has ever seen. Perhaps she should unpick it, bring it back down to size, but that seems such a wasted effort.

But what is she supposed to do with it otherwise? Keep knitting until it grows into something monstrous that could wrap a body three times over? That idea sounds even worse.

She has just sighed, and set down the needles ready to begin the work of unpicking, when Anja groans and stretches. Christine blinks hard, and looks over at the couch. In truth, she was so absorbed in knitting she had forgotten the girl was there.

“Have a nice nap?” She cannot keep the faint current of teasing from her voice. For all that Anja has always enjoyed being busy and having things to do, she has always appreciated a good nap. She was the same when she was small, and all these years later it has never changed.

“It was all right,” and she sighs, her fingers tapping her bodice. “Mamma? Do you believe that Marguerite is just worn out?”

The question makes Christine’s hand still. Sorelli has mentioned it to her, twice actually, that she is worried for Marguerite. She said, in fact, that she did not seem herself at all, and when Christine suggested that it might be due to the strain of working so close to the Front, Sorelli shook her head and whispered, _it’s more than that. I know it is._

And for the second time tonight, Christine is fighting to keep her voice steady and unconcerned. “What makes you ask that?”

Anja turns to look at her, and her lip is creased in just the same way Raoul’s would be, and her words come in a rush. “I saw her leaving Konstin’s room today, and she was very pale. She looked almost as if she had been crying. But I couldn’t say anything to her because I was taking care of a patient, and by the time I got to stop in with Konstin one of the other nurses had given him a dose of morphine and he was almost asleep so I couldn’t get any sense out of him. He just kept rambling on about someone called Dupuis. I sat with him a few minutes and decided to stop in with Antoine to see if he might know what’s wrong with Marguerite, but he just got this funny look on his face, the kind where he’s telling you something but you _know_ he’s not telling you _everything_ and he got that look when I asked him about Persia but that’s another story. When I asked him about Marguerite he just said she was worn out, but he had that look so I know there’s more than that. Something happened Mamma. There must have.”

And when she is finished, the silence drags on. But there are no words Christine can think of to fill it, only to comment that it does not sound like the Marguerite she has always known to let the stress get to her. She should go over there, tomorrow, to talk to Sorelli, and see her goddaughter herself. Maybe there is something she can do to help.

* * *

 

The darkness of the room presses in on him, makes it difficult to breathe. He has a brief flash of waking up from a nightmare, of the walls pressing in on him and Antoine’s soft voice. The train. That must have been on the train because the walls here do not press as badly as that, are more open, yet the darkness makes the guilt in his stomach weigh as heavy as a stone, and his throat is as tight as if there were a noose wrapped around it, rope digging into his skin.

He deserves nothing less than a noose, nothing less than to be strung up.

There is pain, creeping in, distant pain in his leg, gnawing at him, prickling. The pain is good. The pain means that the morphine is wearing off, and it is best that the morphine wear off, best that he not get any relief. He does not deserve relief, deserves only to suffer, deserves to burn endlessly forever.

His eyelids keep fighting to close, fighting to replace the darkness of the room with their own softer darkness. And then to replace the darkness with fog, and blood, and remembered crashing shells. Or the conjured image of Dupuis, stretched in the hospital bed, gasping for breath. Or the lines and lines of bodies laid out, waiting to be moved, to be buried. The jet of blood from Mazet’s neck. Henri’s white face and staring eyes.

Is it better to stay awake? To stay awake and feel the pain throbbing in every wounded part of him? Hips and knee and stomach and ribs and chest and arm? Or better to succumb to sleep, and be faced with the horrors that his command caused?

Or is it, that the longer he forces himself to stay awake, the worse the horrors will be when he inevitably does succumb?

That, perhaps, is the only just way. Let him suffer the pain, and then suffer the memories. It is only right.


	33. Crumbling Down

Raoul’s fingers are soft curled around his own, and there are no words that Konstin can use to describe how grateful he feels. He has laid awake all night, trying to breathe around the knot of guilt in his chest, unable to sleep because each time he closes his eyes he is back there, back in the middle of all of that and besides, in the small hours he sent away the nurse that came with the morphine, plastered a false smile onto his face and insisted he did not need it, and now the pain throbs insistently in his knee, lancing deep if he moves it, and he cannot move because then the other pains will all protest sharply.

He had half a mind to tell her it is a priest he needs, and not morphine. A priest to absolve him of his crimes, to bless him so that he can lie here and wish wholly for death, and not simply long for it by halfs. It would be merciful to let him die. If he were a horse someone would have taken a pistol to him long ago, and condemned him in one shot.

Merciful to let him die. Just to let him live.

And the war between the two rages silently in his heart, even as Raoul holds his hand, but Konstin cannot think about it, must let the war inside of him play out as it will. Raoul does not mention the Front, the only war he knows of, playing out there somewhere east of here. He simply keeps talking of other things, so far removed from all of that, from the battlefield and his men and Dupuis, and it is sinful for he, Konstin, to think of those things when Raoul is talking about things like Anja and “that Capitaine De Courcy” (and it was one of the few times Konstin managed to speak, to inquire if it was Capitaine _Valentin_ De Courcy, and Raoul nodded that it was, and in spite of everything a laugh bubbled up inside of Konstin. Anja, and Valentin De Courcy? Who ever could have imagined that?), and “Émile is wearing himself out he’s just so fascinated by the work” and “they’ve invited your mother to perform at the New Year’s gala, the message only came this morning, and she has half a mind to turn them down, but I said she should perform. It would be good for everyone’s morale, and I know she misses the stage. Sometimes,” and does Konstin imagine it, or are his eyes sad?, “I regret taking her away from that.”

“And what do you do? When you regret it?” and Konstin’s voice is faint simply asking, but suddenly it seems to important to know, so very critical, as if it might throw him a lifeline to cling to, though how can it?

Any imagined sadness disappears from Raoul’s face, and he smiles. “I tell her. And she tells me that I’m a fool, and she knew what she was giving up when she agreed to marry me, and if marrying me hadn’t been wholly something she wanted to do, even though it meant giving up the stage, then she never would have agreed to. She can be very forthright, Christine, when it comes to things like that.” And his voice is soft when he adds, “I think she had to be, to get to where she did.”

Before Konstin can ask what he means by that, Raoul has already moved on, saying, “She’s resting now,” and his thumb gently rubs the back of Konstin’s hand. “She says that you get your sleeplessness from Erik, but I think it’s from her.” He smiles slightly and squeezes Konstin’s hand, and Konstin’s lips twitch into a faint smile in reply. “She’s worn herself out over the last few weeks, but it’s a great comfort to her to have you here. A great comfort to both of us.”

And there it is, the guilt twisting afresh in Konstin’s chest, different guilt now. He worried Mamma, worried Raoul, worried Anja and Émile, worried Antoine most of all, but Guillaume and Marguerite too, and Sorelli, and Philippe. Worried them all by letting himself get wounded, and the guilt throbs deeper in his chest. Oh, but he should have _insisted_ that they not try to cross in the fog. His men would all be alive, he would not have been wounded, Mamma would not have had to worry for him, would not be worn out now, and the guilt is a pain, lancing through his chest, and he whimpers but Raoul is shushing him, shushing him with a finger to his lips and a sharper squeeze of his hand, his eyes stern.

“Now, I don’t want you to feel guilty,” and there is an edge to his voice. “It is not your fault that you got wounded. I know that I don’t know what it’s like out there, or what exactly happened, but you must not feel guilty. You were only following orders, only doing your duty, what you were supposed to be, and getting wounded is just one of those things, it could have happened at any time. There is no need for guilt.”

_No need for guilt_. But it is so _easy_ for Raoul to say that, so easy. He does not understand that it was wrong, it was all wrong, and he should have mutinied, should have let himself be executed rather than end up here, like this. They should not have gotten a telegram that he was wounded but instead one saying that he was traitor, was treasonous, and the tears all catch in a ball in his throat, so tight he can only gasp and Raoul is shushing him, stroking his hair, but the tears come, come and blur him, come in a rush and burn his eyes and Raoul’s fingertips are gentle brushing them away, his arm careful wrapping around him, pulling him close, and that jars the wounds, makes him whimper, and for a moment he is blind, completely blind, the pain washing over him, making his heart falter, and then he feels Raoul’s hand on his back, warm and rubbing him, feels Raoul’s heart beating beneath his ear, his lips gentle kissing his hair.

“It’s all right, Konstin. It’s all right. You’re all right now, I promise, you’re all right. You’re safe. It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault…”

But it _is_ his fault, it is, can’t he see? He shouldn’t have gone out there, should have mutinied and taken the blame and none of this would have happened and it would have been better for everyone, so better if he had—if he had not—

“Oh, poor boy. You dear, poor boy. You’ve been through so much…”

But not as much as the others, not as much, and it would only be fair if he had died out there too, if Antoine had never found him under the fog and he had laid there until he died or until the Germans found him. And Antoine would never have been wounded, if he had not found him, and it would be so much better if Antoine had not been wounded. He would not be stuck here too, would be well.

 

And it takes a long time for Konstin to get control of himself, a long time of Raoul holding him, rocking him as if he were a boy, but eventually he is too exhausted to cry. The tears simply stop coming, and he is left trembling, and cold, Raoul’s arms around him the only heat, and Raoul is so gentle, so infinitely gentle and careful with him, as if he might be breakable, and when Konstin is able to breathe again, when his heart has finally settled from its pounding, Raoul smooths back his hair, and lays him down, and pulls the bed sheets back up to his chin, resuming his seat in the chair beside the bed, his hand warm around Konstin’s own again.

“I’m sorry for—for wetting your shirt.” And Konstin’s voice is still groggy from the tears, but Raoul shushes him, and smiles softly.

“It’s all right. It’s just clothes.” He pauses, and swallows. “Do you—do you feel any better now?”

Any better? Konstin considers. It is not that he is better, the nauseous guilt is roiling in his stomach, but he is so heavy, now, so empty, as if by crying he has hollowed himself out, tunnelled through so that there is only a cave, yawning open with him. Not better. But different.

“Maybe a little.”

Raoul nods, and his eyes are knowing, as if he can see clear through to his soul, can sense his very thoughts and the torment, the turmoil, that has writhed within him and now seems soothed, at least for a time. “Good.”

And for a long time they sit in silence, and Konstin simply focusses on breathing, on trying to keep his heartbeat steady. It is when it pounds that the pain comes, when it pounds that the thoughts come. And if he can keep it quiet, then maybe, maybe it would be easier to bear, it would all be easier.

After a time, Raoul sighs, and presses a soft kiss to his knuckles, and his voice is low when he speaks.

“Your mother—she,” he swallows, and sighs, “she told me how you saw Erik, and I thought—thought it might be some comfort to you, now, if I brought you his pocket watch.” A pause, and then, “We never exactly saw eye to eye, your father and I. About the one thing we ever agreed on was that I would be there for your mother after his—after his day. Of course he, he didn’t know about you, none of us did. His day came a little sooner than I had expected.” He sighs, and his eyes do not meet Konstin’s but Konstin hangs on what he might say next, hardly daring to breathe, the world shrinking down to this moment, to these words. “But I’ve always regretted that I never tried to know him when I had a chance. I know he did a great deal of wrong in his life, but he had a great deal of good in him too.” His eyes meet Konstin’s again, gentle and smiling, but sad, oh so very sad. “Kindness, and gentleness, and immense talent beneath everything else that he was. And Christine saw that, saw all that somehow in spite of the things he did, even when no one else could, when Nadir was the only other one who could see what he was really like beneath it all. And I think, and I’ve always thought, that the best of him is in you.”

Konstin’s heart stalls, and he can only lie there, his throat tight and tears in his eyes, and Raoul reaches into his coat, and slowly, carefully, pulls the pocket watch out from his inside pocket, and lays it into Konstin’s open palm, and gently curls Konstin’s fingers around it. The watch is an old familiar weight, the same as it always was, but it is not the same, not really, not with the way Raoul is looking at him and his soft smile. And Konstin aches to say something to him, anything, aches to thank him, but Raoul only shakes his head, and presses his finger to his lips again.

“I know,” he whispers, his voice faintly hoarse, “I know. But just rest. You getting well is all that matters now. Nothing matters half so much as that.” And he leans in, and kisses Konstin lightly on the forehead, and tears prickle Konstin’s eyes as Raoul stands, and nods at him, laying his hand carefully down. He slips out without another word, and Konstin can only lie there, just lie there, the pocket watch in his hand, and tears coursing slowly down his cheeks.

* * *

 

All at once Marguerite is too empty and too full, too tired to move and her body too heavy. Guillaume is gone, must have slipped away while she slept, and it is all she can muster just to curl tighter in on herself, the blankets a shelter to protect her from the world. The images replay in her mind, over and over, those that came to her and haunted her sleep. She is aware, wholly, completely aware, that they are not real, were not real, it did not happen like that, but still her brain presents them to her as if they were fact, and in the darkness of the night it was no good telling herself that they were lies.

Even now, in the morning light filtering through her curtains, it is impossible to tell herself that they were lies, impossible to shake them away. They cling to her, sink their tiny claws into her, so that all she can see, all she can know, are these fictions presented to her as truth.

She closes her eyes and she is staunching a haemorrhage, her fingers slick with blood, pressing down and down, trying to stop the flood from Edouard’s stump, Minette tightening a tourniquet high on his leg, the bandages dark and soaked.

She opens her eyes, blinks it away. There was no haemorrhage, no blood pooling beneath him. It was not like that, but it could have been, it could have been, and would a haemorrhage have been better than lingering? The fever burning through him and the end just the same?

She closes her eyes, her heavy eyes that beg to be shut, that beg not to be forced to confront the world, and sees the operating theatre, sees Edouard’s pale face slack and blood coating Carrière’s arms to the elbow and above, the shine of the scalpel, and his mutterings as he pokes through Edouard’s stomach. And beneath her fingers she can feel a pulse, a thready weak pulse, fading and fading until it stops and she is crying out and Carrière is swearing, is dropping the scalpel and ordering adrenaline, ordering oxygen to replace the gas, ordering tubes and bandages and someone to _raise his legs now_ and _check his eyes_ and feeling for a pulse himself, blood staining Edouard’s grey throat from the surgeon’s fingers.

A shudder rips through her, her stomach churning though there is nothing in it to bring up, only water, and her eyes flicker open, sweat beading cold and shivery on her skin, as if it is she who has the fever, she who is fighting the infection, and it was an infection, it was, not heart failure during surgery and she is thankful for precious few things but she is thankful for that, thankful that he was not opened up, his innards on display, at the moment that he died, but that he was peaceful in bed.

Peaceful.

He was peaceful.

And she was with him, holding his hand and talking to him and lying beside him, and if it had been in surgery then she could not have been with him like that, would have had to watch Carrière’s failing efforts to persuade his heart to beat.

She can still feel him, lying beside her, can still feel his frail body and his pallid cheek, and that it is how it was, him in her arms and Dumas presiding, the only eyes to see, as if it were some sacred holy thing. (And it was sacred, it was.) And she swallows down the bile in her throat, and draws a halting breath, and nods. That is how it was. And she will not permit her mind to show her otherwise. And when her eyes weigh heavy, she fights the urge to close them.

* * *

 

It is the slight shifting of the bed that wakes her, that stirs her out of a light doze. Her eyes flicker open in time to see Raoul lean in, and his lips brush her forehead. She takes his hand and twines their fingers and he smiles down at her, his eyes soft. “I went to see Konstin,” he murmurs, and those words are all she needs to hear for her heart to clench.

“How is he?” She is hoarse from sleep, and Raoul lightly strokes back her hair.

“Worn to the bone.” The look in his eyes tells her there’s something he’s not saying, and she swallows. He must sense her anxiety because he squeezes her fingers tighter. “He’s upset, of course, over what happened out there, and he’s going to need some time. But I think—I think he was glad to see me.”

And it is so reassuring, so very reassuring and comforting, to hear him say that he thinks Konstin will be all right, and it is so much easier to breathe, as if the band of iron around her chest has been loosened. She smiles up at him, and curling her hand around the nape of his neck, draws him down, and his lips are soft when she kisses him. “I know he was,” she whispers. “I know.”

* * *

 

_If not today, then when?_ This is the thought foremost in Antoine’s mind the moment that Delphine steps in the door, her face, if possible, even sterner than usual, lips pursed and eyes sharp. His heart falters a moment at the sight of her, _should I really ask?_ , but then he draws breath and steels himself.

If not today, then when?

“Will you help me in to visit Commandant Daaé?” He is under no illusion but that he _could_ get there himself, even if he had to support himself against the wall to do it, but it is better that his request have official approval.

Delphine arches one eyebrow, and opens her mouth to speak, but before she can get a word out Antoine is ploughing on.

“I really do feel quite well. Even without the morphine the pain is not a quarter of what it was.” That may be an understatement, because the pain fairly smarts when he moves. “I don’t think I am at risk of fainting, and it might be good for me to go a little further. Plus, I think it would brighten his spirits, with his being confined to that bed all of time.”

And something flashes in Delphine’s eyes, as if she knows something he does not, and she considers him appraisingly. “You are good friends with the Commandant, are you not?”

_Good friends is something of an understatement._ He swallows the statement down, and nods. “I would say that, yes.”

 Her lips twitch, almost as if she is considering a smile, but she nods. “Then perhaps you can talk some sense into the man. I’ll leave you with him for a time, but you must be willing to return when I say so, all right?”

Her willingness catches him by surprise, and he barely has time to consider her words, _talk some sense into him_ , before he is nodding. “I will, I promise.”

“Good.”

And it is ten minutes later, once she has examined his wound, and helped him ease into a dressing gown, and judged him ready, that he is shuffling out of the door of the room at last.

The door to Konstin’s room is close to his own, which is a blessing. His legs are really not quite as strong as he would like. He has spent far too long lying down, both here and in the other hospital, but with Delphine’s help he is able to make it the short distance down the hall, and to Konstin’s door.

The moment the door creaks open, Antoine’s heart lurches. There is Konstin, lying in the bed, his face turned up towards the ceiling and eyes closed, and it is a relief, such a wonderful weakening relief, to see a faint bit of colour in those cheeks.

The creaking of the door must disturb him, because his eyes flicker open, and he turns his head towards the door, and the sight of those eyes makes Antoine’s breath catch in his throat, and Konstin’s mouth opens as he stares.

The remembered words of more than a year ago, when he visited Konstin behind the lines before the Officers’ Ball, and Capitaine Dupuis showed him into the room, come back now, as fresh as if he spoke them only yesterday.

“Hello to you too, Konstin.”

Does he imagine it, or are there tears in Konstin’s eyes? The light catches them just so, and they are tears, they are, and Antoine’s heart aches for him as he whispers, his voice hoarse, “Antoine?”

The smirk that Antoine feels curving his lips is part relief, part happiness, part aching to get closer, but he keeps the trembling out of his voice as he says, crossing the room with Delphine’s help and her settling him into the chair by the bed, “In the flesh.” His hand catches Konstin’s own, and he squeezes it, and Konstin squeezes weakly back, the tears trickling from his eyes. And it is so easy then, so easy to simply look at him.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers, tears in his own eyes, and the words themselves are enough. “I’ve missed you.”


	34. Resolutions

Papa’s arms are warm around her, and she presses herself into him. He does not speak, neither of them speak. Words have no place here. It is enough that he came to her, enough that he lay down on the bed beside her and pulled her into his arms. She had not long composed herself when he appeared in the doorway, and he leaned heavily on his cane, his eyes heavy. She moved over, too tired to say anything, and he nodded, and came in, and joined her.

And neither of them have uttered a single thing but it does not matter. His arms are tight around her, and his breath is soft in her hair, and she can feel it in her bones, the fact that he understands. Maman must have told him, must have explained it all, and a wave of gratitude washes through Marguerite, for her mother and father both, for their gentleness, and tears well in her eyes, and Papa’s lips are soft against her forehead, and he understands, he understands.

“I think,” he whispers eventually, and his voice is soft, a little rough with disuse, “I think you should call on Raoul and Christine later. They will be happy to see you.”

She swallows, fresh anxiety twisting in her stomach, and nuzzles into him, and nothing matters only this.

* * *

 

Konstin has dozed in the time that Antoine has been sitting here. It is a relief to see him so peaceful, at so much more ease than he was only an hour or two ago. There was tension in his eyes, a fumbling in his fingers, and Antoine felt a check at his heart, Delphine’s words coming back to him.  _Perhaps you can talk some sense into the man_.

(It surely cannot be much longer until Delphine comes back, to return him to his room.)

“I had a visit from Raoul today,” and Konstin’s voice was soft, and it was then that Antoine saw the golden case of a pocket watch peeping out from beneath Konstin’s injured hand, and he recognized the case, recognized the way it is faintly worn, and he knew. He raised Konstin’s good hand to his lips, and kissed him lightly on the knuckles. And there was a glimmer of a tear in Konstin’s eyes, his lips twisting, and Antoine’s heart ached for all he could not do.

“What’s wrong, my love?” he whispered, his voice low so that nobody else could hear him, nobody who may happen to pass by the room. “I know there’s something troubling you. Have you—have you been having nightmares again?”

And Konstin drew a shuddering breath, but didn’t say anything.

“You know you can tell me about it, Konstin. You—I can’t—I can’t bear the thought of you suffering with these things alone. You’ll feel better if you tell me.”

It took so long, so very long, of Antoine murmuring, of rubbing circles into the back of Konstin’s hand, of promising him that he will be all right, until Konstin whispered, tears trickling down his cheeks, “It’s my fault they’re dead, all my fault.”

The whole story came spilling out, in halting words, and Antoine did not speak, simply listened, and held Konstin’s hand to his lips, grateful that his back was to the door, that no one could come in and catch them unawares. The whole sorry, terrible story, about the order, and the colonel and the fog which was so much thicker when Konstin tried to cross with his men than when Antoine tried the next morning, and how he knew it was a suicide mission but he had to go ahead, and he saw a jet of blood before the world went dark.

“...and Marguerite told me—told me about Dupuis—about what happened to him. And he died, Antoine, he died horribly after lingering for so long, and she loved him. She loved him but he died and it’s my fault that he’s dead...” but Antoine had barely comprehended the words, barely comprehended that Marguerite had loved a man, when Konstin was already moving on, and he had to set aside the stab of pain for his sister to try to keep up with what was being said. “...and Lieutenant Henri left a wife and—and a little girl and they were going to have a baby, Antoine, they were going to have another baby but he died, and it’s my fault that he died. I should have done something, should have pushed him out of the way or gotten in front of him or  _anything_ and all he wanted was his wife, just his wife...”

And on and on, about the other men, about how he should be punished, about how he has refused morphine (and the thought of him refusing morphine was an odd prickle of relief in Antoine’s mind, even though he knows Konstin needs the morphine so badly just to try to keep the pain away), until his voice was hoarse, and Antoine brushed his hair away as he fell silent, trying to pull his thoughts together.

“It is not your fault, Konstin,” he whispered, swallowing, and wishing that he could somehow make him believe, could somehow take his pain and guilt away. “The fault lies with the general who gave the order, and not with you or I. I swear it to you, Konstin. I swear it.”

“I should have done something, should have tried to stop it.” His voice was barely a breath.

“Should have mutinied?” Konstin nodded, a tiny, faint nod, and Antoine’s stomach churned even as he fought to keep his own feelings under control. “If you’d mutinied you’d be dead, and the crossing still would have gone ahead, just with someone else leading, and all of those men would still be dead, and there would be no one to remember them. We can’t dwell on how they died, or we will go mad. It will torment us and haunt us all of our lives, and they would not want that. But we can remember them, remember the men that they were, how brave, how kind, how wonderful. How they loved everyone that they left behind them. That’s your duty, Konstin, to remember them as they were. It’s better, a thousand times better, that you are alive. I promise.” He kisses his knuckles. “I promise.”

For a long time after that they sat in silence, simply holding hands, simply existing, Konstin’s words turning over and over in Antoine’s mind.  _...should have pushed him out of the way or gotten in front of him...should have done something..._ But if he had done something then he would be dead, too, along with the rest. He would be lying buried in some grave so very far away from here, those awful words of  _killed in action_ or  _executed_ whispered about him, accompanied by meaningful glances. And he almost died as it was. If he had been later in finding him, or if his infection had gotten any worse, or if any of the possible complications, in surgery and after, had happened, then he would gone too. He nearly joined them, nearly was not here to remember those other men, would have been just one more name in a long list, and the bile burned Antoine’s throat as it rose, and he swallowed it down, kissing Konstin’s hand again. “I need you alive,” he whispered. “Christine needs you alive, and Raoul. Marguerite needs you now more than ever, and if she did love Dupuis then you are the only one who can tell her about it. And Anja needs you, and Émile, and Guillaume. And Maman needs you, and Papa. We all need you so very much, and those men need you, the ones who died, the ones you could not save. They need you perhaps most of all. You are the only one who can tell their stories.”

And fresh tears trickled from Konstin’s eyes, but he did not speak, his lips twisted, only nodded again, another faint nod. Antoine leaned in, and brushed his lips gently against his forehead, and let his own tears drip into Konstin’s hair.

It was a long time later, such a very long time later, when Konstin squeezed his fingers back and whispered, “Thank you.” And that “Thank you” was the most precious thing that Antoine had ever heard in his life.

Konstin sighs now, his face slack, and Antoine smiles. “Sleep well, my love. Sleep well.”

* * *

 

When Marguerite knocked on the door, and Raoul answered it, but she insisted on speaking privately with Christine, it was in that moment that Christine knew. Knew that Marguerite had loved a man, and knew how it ended, and the moment that Raoul settled Marguerite onto the divan and slipped out of the room, closing the door carefully behind him, Christine settled on the divan beside her, and pulled her into her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into the poor girl’s ear, stroking her long hair gently. “I’m sorry.”

And Marguerite whispered against her, “How do you know?”

And Christine’s breath caught in her throat, her arms wrapped around Marguerite remembering the heavy weight of Erik’s body, and she breathed, “Because I was like you once.” Marguerite knows about Erik, of course she does, but Christine knows the difference between knowing and having it said, and Marguerite simply nodded against her.

Christine pulled back, and stood up, smoothing the creases from her dress. “A very small sip of cognac, I think, to steady the nerves.” And she tried not to think that she sounded like Nadir as she busied herself at the cabinet, withdrew the decanter and two glasses, and poured one finger into each glass.

“Sip it,” she whispered, passing one glass to Marguerite, and the girl nodded, taking it with trembling hands as Christine sipped her own, and settled back down beside her. “Tell me about him.”

And Marguerite told her.

And that is how they came to be like this, Marguerite cradled in Christine’s arms, the brandy glasses set aside, and Christine whispering, “Perhaps it is better this way, better that he rest, and not need to suffer anymore. He went through so much, so terribly much.” And she falls silent, thinking of this Edouard, thinking of Erik and all that he suffered, and knows that the words are true though they are surely not the ones that Marguerite wants to hear.

Marguerite whimpers, her hands balling in the material of Christine’s dress, and Christine rocks her gently.

“You will always remember him,” Christine goes on, whispering into her hair. “And part of you will always have those feelings over him, and there is nothing wrong with that, nothing. But it will get easier, I promise it will. And thirty years from now—thirty years from now, and in an awful lot less, you will look back, and it will feel as if he belongs to another world, as if you were someone else. And you will always care for him, and always remember him.” Her words trail off, and she swallows, and hopes that what she says next can be of some comfort to her, some relief. “Just know that you brought him peace in his last days. And you being there meant he was not alone at the end. It would have been so much worse if he had been alone, so much worse.”

Marguerite whimpers again, and Christine’s heart clenches to hear her, and she rocks her, keeps rocking her, back and forth, and back, and forth, over and over and over again, and it is only when her breathing has evened, only when her grip on Christine’s dress has loosened, that Christine realises that she is asleep.

Gently, infinitely gently so as not to wake her, Christine eases herself out from under Marguerite, and lowers her down to lie. She takes a blanket, the one she has wrapped around herself on her own late nights in this room and lays it gently over Marguerite, to keep her warm. She tidies away the cognac, the glasses, and smooths her hands over her dress, scrubs her face to remove any trace of her own tears, and then and only then, she goes to the door.

She finds Raoul in the dining room, sitting cross-legged in a chair at the head of the table, his newspaper spread out before him, and he looks up when he hears her enter.

“How is she?” he asks, his voice low, and Christine smiles as she crosses to his side, and kisses him gently on his forehead. And she slips onto his lap, and draws his arms around her.

“She will be all right,” she murmurs back, and leans into him. “She will be all right.”

And deep down, she knows that the words are true.


	35. Epilogue - Christmas Eve, 1917

The soft clink of glasses, and a sad hint of a smile playing around Antoine’s lips. “With any luck by next Christmas this whole war will be over and we’ll be back here again, just you and I.”

The words hang in the air, and Konstin leans in, kissing him gently. He tastes sharply of cognac, and Konstin pulls back, so that their lips are only barely touching, and whispers, “How long have we been wishing that for?”

Antoine’s breath is warm. “Maybe this time it will be enough,” and he leans back, takes another sip from his glass.

Konstin follows suit, but his is only a small sip. It is so long since he has been allowed to drink anything. Alcohol does not mix with morphine. Or laudanum. Or opium. It is a lesson he has learned so many times, and now that, finally, there is no morphine in his blood (has not _been_ morphine in his blood in more than two weeks), the cognac seems sharper than ever it was before. It numbs his lips, and burns his throat, and he forces a smile that he does not feel at the thought of the war. “Maybe.”

Antoine raises his glass, and Konstin lightly clinks his against it. And just as he is beginning to wonder what they are supposed to be toasting, Antoine swallows.

“To you being alive.” His voice is barely more than a whisper, and Konstin’s heart catches in his throat, expanding and expanding as if he will never be able to draw a full breath again, and he reaches out, and gently takes Antoine’s hand in his own. Their rings glint in the soft light of the fire.

If he could take it back, turn back the clock so that he was never wounded, so that Antoine never had to see him like that, he would in a heartbeat. So many things he would take back, would change in an instant if he could, and that one is chief, top of the list.

“To you being here,” he whispers, and raises Antoine’s hand gently to his lips. A tear shines in Antoine’s eye, and they clink their glasses again, and each take another sip.

This time Antoine leans in, and presses his lips to Konstin’s. “To love,” he breathes, and the words send a shiver through Konstin’s bones.

“To us.” _To us, here and now, always together,_ and after he kisses Antoine’s cheek he pulls back, and they clink their glasses and drink, and then he whispers, “To Mamma, and Raoul.” All they have done for him, for both of them. They have been here, steadfast and stalwart, and it does not matter that they do not know, that he has never told them the truth of he and Antoine, because there is an ocean of understanding in Mamma’s eyes when she looks at him, and Raoul nodded as much as to say that there is nothing left to be said.

“To Erik.” And now the tears prickle Konstin’s eyes, and one trickles down his cheek. Antoine reaches over, wipes it away gently. “I know, darling, I know.” And he does know, he does, because Konstin has told him about that night, and Erik’s words ring in his mind again, _The boy cares for you very much…I dare say it is in you to love him too_ and _we have never been normal, you or I._

Antoine presses his glass to Konstin’s mouth, and Konstin sips it. “I think he was happy for us,” Konstin murmurs, and Antoine smiles.

“He was.” And then a gleam comes into his eye. “I know he was.” The words hang in the air a moment, as if they are part of some secret sacred sacrament, and Konstin’s heart swells, before Antoine sighs, and leans back. “To Anja and her Capitaine.”

And a chuckle bubbles up inside of Konstin that he cannot suppress. He never could have expected that, and though it is months since Raoul first told him about them, the idea is something he is still adjusting to. But Anja has explained it to him, her hand wrapped loosely around his and her eyes soft and his little sister had never looked so happy before, and it is all very logical, and when De Courcy visited him in the hospital he was hesitant, as if he did not know how Konstin would react to hear that they are effectively courting.

How could Konstin ever stand in the way of two people who love each other? When one considers… And Antoine’s lip twitches as if he knows just what Konstin is thinking.

But thinking of Anja and De Courcy only reminds him of Marguerite and Dupuis. Similar in so many ways, a nurse and a wounded soldier, but with a far different ending, and his heart twists painfully as he raises his glass again to tap Antoine’s and whispers, “To Marguerite.” _And Dupuis_. “May this year be kinder to her than the last.” And Antoine nods, his face solemn.

More toasts follow, almost a host of them. “To Philippe and Sorelli.”

“To Émile and to Guillaume, the brothers we could not live without.”

“To Nadir.”

“And to Darius.”

“To the men at the lines.”

“To the men behind the lines waiting to go up.”

And it is Konstin who whispers, feeling only half-tethered as if he could float away, and he has not drunk so very much cognac, not really, “To the dead.”

And Antoine replies, and does not fight the tears that trickle from his eyes, “To the wounded.” And then they are reaching, holding onto each other, just holding on, as if it will be enough to keep the world spinning around them.

* * *

 

A heavy frost blankets the land, gives the impression of snow though there is no snow. It glows faintly in the light of the moon, silver and freezing to the bone. The earth is a frozen tomb tonight, encasing Edouard’s bones tight in its embrace.

(She tries not to think of him being bones. It makes her ill to think about, though she has gotten so much better.)

She is grateful that it is only frozen. Better the frost than having rain pelting down heavy on the rows and rows of graves.

Sighing, she curls tighter in on herself. Minette is still on the wards, taking the night shift on this night of all nights, and Amélie’s breathing is soft from the other bed. Sometimes she can listen to that soft breathing, to each gentle inhale and exhale, and not have to think, not have to remember, or wonder.

Konstin has told her so very much about Edouard. Things she would never have known otherwise, and though her fingers ache to pull out the bundle of letters he has sent her, she does not wish to risk it. Pulling them out would mean lighting the lamp, and then that might disturb Amélie. There is not enough silvery light coming in the window to read by, though it is a bright night nonetheless.

(Sometimes, she is not certain if it is better for there to be a bright night or a dark night. A bright night makes it so much easier for bullets to find their marks out there on the killing fields.)

She does not need to read the letters though, not really. She has read them enough times that their words are etched in her memory.

_…he always refused to leave a man behind if he thought he could be helped…_

_…he was the eldest son and his father was proud of having an officer in the family…_

_…his brother-in-law was in a cavalry regiment, killed in the early months…his nephew is only a young boy…I hate to think of him growing up uncle-less and father-less…_

_…I think he would have been happy that you were there with him. Even had you been a stranger, I think he would have been happy. His younger brother, Marcel, was killed in ’15. Shot while laying telephone wires, and they got him to a dressing station, but he died in the ambulance on the way to the clearing station. Dupuis_ (and Dupuis is crossed out where Konstin corrected himself) _Edouard always said that he would hate to die in an ambulance…_

_…there is an even younger brother, I forget his name. Younger even than Émile. Edouard was always worried he might decide to lie about his age and try to join up…_

_…I hope for everyone’s sake he has more sense than that…_

_…I hope this thing ends before it ever comes to that…_

_…I try to understand it, try to figure out how we ended up in this mess. It all seemed so clear once. Now the more I think about it the less I fathom it…_

_…but you, Marguerite, you need to take of yourself. He would not want you neglecting yourself now. Take comfort from the fact that you made his last days a hundred, a thousand!, times better than they might have been. I know such thoughts can only be so much comfort, but you gave him something he would never have had, and wherever he is I am certain Edouard is smiling, and wishing only for your good health…_

Snatches of so many letters, all written in Konstin’s strong hand. She knows he has written to Edouard’s family, knows that he wrote them only days after she told him what had happened. _It is my duty as his Commanding Officer,_ he insisted, though his eyes were wandering with tiredness and morphine, and she sat with him as he wrote, for Edouard, and for the other men under his command, killed and wounded. He was not half strong enough to be writing letters, and certainly not so many of them, but the moment she suggested that fire blazed in his eyes, and she knew there was no use in arguing.

(She mentioned it to Christine, afterwards, half-hoping that his mother’s intervention would dissuade him, but Christine only smiled sadly and said, “He gets that from his father.”)

Dumas is having a small midnight service in the chapel. She has been so worn out these last days that she was not intending to attend, but with sleep refusing to come perhaps it is better that she does. Slowly, infinitely slowly, she withdraws her watch from the top of the bedside locker. Squinting in the silvery light, she makes out the ticking hands. Another two hours. She has plenty of time yet.

* * *

 

The Medical Board will decide their respective fates. Konstin already knows that he will not be considered fit for any form of service yet, and the panel of experts will dictate that he remain in Paris to continue his convalescence. They will decide it based on the condition of his leg, and the fact that he is only recently out of hospital, and the fact that at times he still has trouble seeing through his left eye though it is much improved on what it was, though by the time the Board convenes to discuss him a month will have passed. He has no issue remaining in Paris, no issue at ill. Better here than having to trek up the lines again.

But Antoine. Antoine will have his Medical Board at the same time too, and Antoine has been out of hospital so much longer, has already returned to minor clerical service here. His wound has healed. They are almost guaranteed to send him back to the Front.

Konstin’s stomach churns and he tries to push the certainty of it away. Antoine’s arms tighten around him, his lips brushing his forehead, and Konstin knows that Antoine knows what his thinking. It is their common subject of thought these days.

Antoine will be ordered back up to the lines. And Konstin will be forced to remain here, wondering.

“It might not come to that,” Antoine murmurs, his voice soft in the low light. “They might decide that I am not half fit enough yet, and insist on my remaining here for another couple of months.”

“The odds of that are remarkably slim.” There is a bite to Konstin’s words, but he is not sorry for it. He is sick of these platitudes, of these vain attempts at reassurance. Why lie to him when he knows how it is going to turn out? If Antoine were an enlisted man, not an officer, he would likely have received his marching orders already, especially considering how well his wound has healed, cleanly and a minimum of scarring, and it was not very deep in the first place. “You will be sent back up there, and in the meantime, I’ll be here until either this war ends or they realise that, oh, all of their officers are getting blown up and there’s a shortage in the supply, and really my leg does not look so bad after all, no use in keeping me nice and safe in Paris, better give me a command again. It gives the men heart you know, to see a battered officer like me returning to lead them.”

Antoine sighs, and audibly rolls his eyes, but does not speak

“You’ll be off out there and I’ll be here, suffering through endless charity balls and engagements, sitting in the corner and all of these dowagers coming up to me with their lovely caring daughters, and I have to smile and pretend as if the only person I could ever need in the world is not currently on the line somewhere east of Boscherville getting shot at by the Germans.”

Antoine shifts their lying position so that they are eye to eye, and says, with precision aforethought, “Shut up, Konstin.”

The tone says all that Konstin needs to know, and he purses his lips, cocks an eyebrow, and murmurs, “Make me.”

The heat is already building in a knot beneath his navel when Antoine crushes their mouths together, and slips his tongue between Konstin’s parted lips.

* * *

 

Soon they will need to leave to attend the midnight service, but not yet, not yet. They still have a little time, and with Raoul’s arms warm around her it is as if that little time could spin out the world forever, keep them in this moment always. She leans into him, and sighs, her eyes closed against the dim light. It is their wedding dance playing low on the phonograph, the slow waltz that Konstin composed for them all of those years ago, and then recorded “so that you will always have it,” he said, and smiled.

But they are not waltzing tonight, no. Christmas Eve is not a night to waltz. It is a night to hold each other close, and sway gently, and simply be thankful for this, for these arms, for this body pressed close. And Christine is grateful. Grateful for so many things; that Konstin is well again, that Anja is happy, that Marguerite has recovered enough to return to work in the hospital, that Guillaume is confirmed safe at sea another day, that Émile is still too young and has sworn never to lie about his age, that Philippe and Sorelli are relieved and together, that Konstin has Antoine and Antoine has Konstin, and tonight they are in Erik’s old house beneath the opera, which Raoul helped Antoine get back into good repair in an effort to raise Konstin’s spirits.

(They will not be back tonight, either of them. But she did not expect that they would.)

She is grateful for Capitaine de Courcy, grateful that he is so respectful of Anja’s youth, understandable about her and Raoul’s concerns for their daughter. Grateful, in a secret, selfish way, that he failed his Medical Board, and has been placed on permanent home duties here in Paris, and not sent away to some other base, not ordered back to the Front. She knows she could not bear seeing Anja anxious for him if he were sent back to the Front.

He will accompany her to the New Year’s Eve gala at the Garnier, in the knowledge that her whole family, including Konstin, and Émile, and Philippe and Sorelli, and Antoine, will also be in attendance. The only ones missing will be Guillaume and Marguerite, detained at their own duties.

(She herself is bound to sing, only three songs and one of them is an aria of Erik’s. It will be her first time back on that stage since her marriage to Raoul, and she thinks of it with anxious flutters in her stomach, but excitement too. It will be wonderful to be back, even if only for one night.)

But for all of the things Christine is grateful for, all of the many things, tonight she is most grateful that Konstin is alive, and that she has Raoul, here, beside her always, to hold her, to kiss her, to love her, for her to hold, and kiss, and love, for the length of both of their lives. She has loved him for more than thirty years, loved him even as she loved Erik, and still loves Erik, and if she could hold Erik once more, and kiss him once more, she would, and she knows that Raoul would understand.

Raoul has always understood.

The music comes to an end, the last sweet note holding for the space of several heartbeats, fading out. And she opens her eyes, and smiles up at Raoul, and he smiles back down at her, his eyes soft, and creased, the silver hair at his temples blurring with the golden blond that she has loved so well, and he bows his head as she reaches up, and in a moment they are kissing, kissing, his lips moving gently against hers the way they always have, and she leans into him, presses a little harder, until he pulls back and murmurs, his breath warm against her mouth,

“May next Christmas fall on a world at peace.”

And Christine nods, and sighs, “Amen,” and when their lips meet again their prayer is sealed.

* * *

 

Antoine sighs, and nuzzles into Konstin’s throat, his fingers lightly tracing the scar on his abdomen. Konstin shivers beneath his touch, his hand curling tighter around Antoine’s hip.

“Do you think we are heathens?” Antoine murmurs, his voice heavy with sleep and the bone-deep satisfaction from their recent carnal activities. “For not attending the midnight service?”

Konstin chuckles, a deep tired chuckle that seems to fill Antoine’s chest just to hear. “I rather think, in light of our pleasures, we are heathens whether or _not_ we attend the midnight service. One more count—” He whimpers, his words breaking off as Antoine’s fingers ghost the trail of hair beneath his navel and gently, gently, smooth down to stroke his inner thigh. There are no scars here, only the smooth delicate skin, and Konstin sighs, and shifts so that his hips are closer to Antoine’s own.

Antoine nips the skin of his throat lightly, and Konstin yelps as he kisses back over the slight mark of his teeth, breathing “True,” kiss, “I mean,” kiss, “missing midnight service,” kiss, “is hardly the worst,” kiss, “thing we’ve ever done.” Kiss, kiss, kiss, so many little kisses pressed down the column of Konstin’s throat to the smooth line of his clavicle.

“I think you must be some sort of a demon,” Konstin breathes as Antoine licks the stray freckle just beneath his collarbone, and Antoine grins, and raises his head so that he can meet Konstin’s gaze.

“Oh? Why?”

“Because,” Konstin pulls him closer, so that their faces are level again, and kisses him on the corner of the mouth, “you were clearly sent to torment me.”

And when he kisses Antoine’s throat, all thoughts of heathens and demons are banished.

 

It is later, much later, and Konstin is sleeping, his breaths soft against Antoine’s ear. Though sleep tugs heavy at Antoine’s own eyelids, he will not give in, not yet. He must savour this as long as he can, his arms full of sleeping Konstin, and he carefully traces each of the many scars on Konstin’s chest and abdomen. So many small little shrapnel scars, and any one of them (and especially the one beneath his heart) could have been enough to end him, could have heralded his death, and Antoine would not be lying here now, warm and heavy and sated, pressed against him, and the thought of there ever being a possibility of his not having Konstin beside him is unbearable.

But it almost came to pass, almost. And sometimes those days in the hospital still feel as if they were a dream, a walking nightmare. Those days when he could barely stay awake himself, though every fibre of him was aware that Konstin was in danger, that Konstin was ill, that Konstin needed him. So very long ago, but only three months. Three months have brought them to this, back around to where they were always meant to be, held safe in each other’s arms.

To think they almost lost this.

To think he almost lost this wonderful, beautiful, brilliant man.

Tears prickle his eyes, and gently he kisses Konstin’s forehead. Konstin snuffles in his sleep, presses in closer to Antoine, and Antoine kisses his forehead again, and the scar over his left eye. Sometimes he still sees the blood that coated Konstin’s face. Sometimes he still sees him, crumpled in that shell crater, feels his breath against his throat as he lay over him to keep him safe from the strafe, the weight of him heavy on his back as he mindlessly followed the ghost of Erik through No Man’s Land.

He has relived that day so many nights, and the ones that followed when he thought he would lose Konstin, the night he sat beside him, cradling his hand and praying and whispering in Persian, anything he could think of to keep him, to hold him. And it has come to this. And Konstin is safe, and well.

Safe, and well. And sometimes it is easy to forget the nightmares that still plague him, the terrible things he sees as if he is forever back in the trenches, trapped there and condemned to watch. But Konstin will not have nightmares tonight, of that Antoine is certain.

Marguerite confided in him, the night before she boarded the train to return to the hospital, that she knows about he and Konstin. “I realised it when you were so anxious over the Saint Anthony, and the wedding band,” she whispered, and Antoine barely remembers that but he remembers the clawing nausea and the thought that if Konstin did not have his chains then he would surely die. “And it took me a little bit of getting used to. I was sitting with—with Edouard when it came to me, but I think—I think if you love him, and he loves you, then it can only be a good thing.” And her voice grew very soft, and very low, and she breathed, “I do not think he would have lived, if it were not for the way you love each other.”

And tears filled Antoine’s eyes as he embraced his little sister, because he has often wondered the same thing himself, if his love helped Konstin to cling to life, and Marguerite whispered into his ear, “I promise I will keep your secret.”

Antoine looks down, now, at Konstin, at his peaceful face slack with sleep, his barely parted lips, and his heart is so full of where they came from, what they went through. So very full, and he brushes his fingertips lightly over Konstin’s eyes, and bows his head, and kisses his cheek. “I love you,” he whispers, “I love you more than anything else in this world, and I know I could not live without you. I love you, Konstin. I love you.” And he kisses his temple, and smiles. “Merry Christmas, my love. Merry Christmas.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [This Empty Space](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13328805) by [ponderinfrustration](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderinfrustration/pseuds/ponderinfrustration)




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